


Sinner's Fire

by ShadeDuelist



Series: Modern TF2 universe ('Bolt of Lightning'/'Sinner's Fire') [3]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bipolar Disorder, Depression, F/M, Friendship/Love, M/M, Multi, Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, Promiscuity, Pyromania, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-23 02:58:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 46
Words: 358,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2531561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadeDuelist/pseuds/ShadeDuelist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(This work is an alternate turn of events from my other big TF2 story, 'Like a bolt of Lightning' - go give it a read sometime, especially if you're into Pyro/Scout, it's full of that)</p><p>Sam Tennant is grieving: the loss of a brother to suicide by self-immolation, the betrayal of parents, having to start life anew with heavy burns and a heart deeply wounded by pain and guilt... the job as pyrotechnics expert in a team of 'mercenaries' provides a new purpose but it does nothing to keep the hurt and the sorrow at bay.<br/>Gabriel Dantan is slipping: with a boyfriend he cheats on, a steady habit of nightly drinking, a life that spun out of control after the loss of his mother and the pyromania he turned to as a means of escaping the pain - and the prison sentence it led to... it's no wonder that he feels like he's losing his second chance, no wonder he feels powerless in life.</p><p>Two people poised on the edge, both struggling with their own brands of inner demons, meet... and something irreversible happens.  Will this lead to their downfall, or will it be their salvation?  Will the sinner's fire burn the angel's wings, or will the angel lead on the road to a long-awaited paradise?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Where there is desire, there is gonna be a flame

*disclaimer: I own nothing of Team Fortress 2. I do own the idea for this story, so hands off, I share the Pyro's love for fire...*

 

Note: before you start reading, there's a few things you need to know. Mainly that  _this story is an alternate line of events from 'Like a bolt of lightning'_ . What that means is that the start of the story is largely the same (not word-for-word, but the events that take place in it are) but that it deviates after a while and develops into a whole different story after that. The second thing you need to be aware of is that this story will be chock-full of  _a lot of possible triggers_ , most of all pyromania, addiction, depression, a lot of gruesome injuries, physical and mental distress, unfaithfulness and promiscuity, and oodles and oodles of foul language. But the third thing you need to know is that this story will (hopefully) be  _a strong and positive story_ about how life may not always be a walk in the park but that the challenges you face are never impossible to best – and how it's easier to have someone by your side willing to beat the odds with you.

 

_I don't want to lose you_

_This good thing, that I got_

_'Cause if I do, I will surely_

_Surely lose a lot_

 

_'Cause your love, is better_

_than any love I know_

_It's like thunder, lightning_

_The way you love me is frightening_

_You better knock, knock,_

_on wood, baby, baby_

 

_I'm not superstitious, about ya_

_But I can't take no chance_

_You got me spinnin', baby_

_You know I'm in a trance_

 

_'Cause your love, is better_

_than any love I know_

_It's like thunder, lightning_

_The way you love me is frightenin'_

_You better knock, knock, knock_

_on wood, baby, baby_

 

_Think I better knock, knock, knock on wood_

_Think I better knock, knock, knock on wood_

_Think I better knock, knock, knock on wood_

_Think I better knock, knock, knock on wood_

_Think I better knock_

 

_It's no secret, about it_

_'Cause with his lovin' touch_

_He sees, to it_

_That I get enough_

 

_With his touch, all over_

_you know it means so much_

_It's like thunder, and lightnin'_

_The way you love me is frightenin'_

_You better knock, knock, knock_

_on wood, baby, baby_

 

_Think I better knock, knock, knock on wood_

_Think I better knock, knock, knock on wood_

_Think I better knock, knock, knock on wood_

_Think I better knock, knock, knock on wood_

 

Prologue: Where there is desire, there is gonna be a flame

 

“Michael...” The heavily bandaged figure on the hospital bed whimpered, causing the man sitting next to it to look up from his magazine. The sound of the wounded person's voice had been hoarse and constricted, exactly as you would expect someone's voice would sound after they'd run into a burning building. “Michael...”, the figure whimpered again, a pained sound, followed by a sob that could just as well have been a wince as tears soaked into the bandages shrouding multiple open, suppurating wounds. The man laid down his magazine and stepped outside, where he lit up a cigarette and inhaled the smoke deeply. He barely even coughed as the smoke entered his lungs. Normally, it was Sam's sin, smoking, but now...

Damien Tennant felt like his sibling's nightmares could hardly be worse than reality.

He still remembered how surreal it had all been at first: watching the images on the late night news, gruesomely detailed images of a fire at a gas station in England, seeing the charred person being carted off the scene, it had been cringeworthy of its own accord – and that was before he even had known that it was Sam,  _his_ Sam, and why that fire had started. Who he'd lost to it. He still remembered how his telephone rang and he'd wondered who could possibly be calling in the middle of the night. After that, his memory had an understandable blank – all that had happened in between that telephone call and his trip to England, to attend a funeral he'd wished he never would have had to attend, was gone forever. All washed away in the grief over losing Michael. Their sibling had been the youngest of the three of them, and he'd also been the most fragile of the three of them. Damien had already suspected that Michael had been struggling with a deep depression for a long time, so he'd sent him a ticket for a stay a year before, at which point he'd taken Michael to a friend who was a well-known psychiatrist for a few tests; the news that the teenager suffered from bipolar disorder seemed more like a ray of hope instead of a life sentence at that time. Now, however, it added to the pain Damien felt. He could have done more – informed his parents, kept Michael longer, talked him into receiving treatment... However, he thought of his mother and the badly veiled disappointment in her eyes every time she mentioned Michael, and he sighed again, taking another deep smoke-filled pull, and then another, until he felt calm again and his thoughts fled back to the three or four days of which he could barely remember anything. He supposed, now, sitting in a hospital in New York, only an hour's drive away from his home, watching the only sibling he still had slowly recover from running into a burning building... now he supposed that he'd already made arrangements for his ailing sibling to come back with him. The first moment he'd seen Sam again, seen the extent of the injuries... he doubted he'd ever forget that. He felt an almost physical pain even thinking about it now.

What made the injuries and the suffering of the one person on the planet that looked up to him even worse was the fact that he was now the only person on the planet that cared in return. Sam had frequently clashed with their mother, who was a tyrannical woman that had often raised her hand against Sam, and later against Michael, their younger sibling. Their mother had hoped that all her children would turn out like him, interested in economics and wanting to pursue a high-profile career. But Sam had flourished in hard sciences, being interested in the creation and refinement of  _fireworks_ , of all things, and had studied and gotten a job in pyrotechnics. The displays that Sam had worked on had always been amazing – brilliant, colourful, awe-inspiring displays that invariably garnered attention. However, the one thing they hadn't gotten, not ever, was the approval of their mother. She still regarded Sam's career as inferior and had left no chance unused to point out that economics was better in every way: a more steady career, more financial security, a job that didn't involve working well into the night or coming home smelling like sulphur... all her arguments had been mentioned at least fifteen times – and each of those fifteen times, Sam's answers had been the same. 'Mum, I love my job, I love the late hours and the smell of the chemicals, and nothing you say or do will ever convince me I'm wrong about doing what I love.' Though earlier that year...

Another pull meant the cigarette's end, but Damien was past noticing it, absent-mindedly discarding the butt as he was lost in thought. Sam had come back from one of the biggest fireworks displays the team had ever had to do practically with a letter of resignation in hand. Rumors had abounded about the reason – their mother had been particularly adamant that Sam had gotten thrown off the team because of having slept with half the team, justifying it with the words 'you know it's always been like that with Sam, not caring about anything but fulfilling whatever need comes to mind first'. It was hardly a surprise that Sam had refused to visit home since then unless their father or Michael asked it, and even then only doing so when certain their mother was out of the house; it also was hardly a surprise that Michael's deep, depressive episodes grew worse since he modeled himself after Sam more than after him or their father and mother. And it hardly was a surprise, of course, that their mother had blamed Sam for what had happened to Michael.

The thought still filled Damien with disgust and horror, so he lit up another cigarette without even realizing it.

Sam had been unconscious, kept in a chemically induced coma because of the burns that covered more than seventy-five percent of the body that had been flung into a burning building trying to  _save_ Michael, and even then every breath his sibling took was desperate and every movement was stiff and minute. And all their mother had done was say that 'Sam talked Michael into it'. She'd refused to believe that Michael had been manic-depressive, and even if she believed it, she certainly didn't think it her fault. She'd even gone as far as take the entire matter to court – Damien used his connections to get Sam an excellent attorney and the case was decided against their parents, though the judge had somehow found it necessary to instate a period of one year of compulsory psych evaluations. Still, it hadn't been the conviction their parents had hoped for – but instead of just admitting their defeat, they'd sold their property and moved out of England, to  _Antwerp_ of all places, from where they cut off all communications with their child. Their father had not spoken up in the entire discussion, so Damien wasn't sure whether he agreed with his wife or with Sam, but he hadn’t shown any support to his own flesh and blood at all. The only luck Sam seemed to have was that their parents weren’t there to make life any more difficult than it already was.

“Mister Tennant?” The voice of one of the nurses made him look up, his thoughts instantly dissipating like smoke in a sudden breeze. “Sam is up and-” He guessed the continuation effortlessly and nodded, putting out his cigarette and tossing the butt into the ashtray he'd been hovering around.

“I'll go back inside. Thanks for warning me.” He knew what he'd find inside: ever since the chemically induced coma had to be stopped in order for the treatment to start, Sam rarely slept for longer than three hours at a time. The doctor overseeing the multidisciplinary treatment, doctor Benedict Harvey, said that that was due to the recurring nightmares and the residual pain that their non-addictive pain management program couldn't tackle, but Damien knew that it was more than that. It was _emotional_ pain, pain that not even morphine could take away, and deep guilt even though Sam could not – could _never –_ have stopped Michael from lighting up their parental home and lock himself inside. True to his guess, his sibling lay softly crying in the pristine white bed, looking like a persistant stain of dirt in the sheets and probably feeling just like that as well.

“Damien...” It was a hoarse, wheezy sound, pained and plaintive – so unlike the usual bold and energetic way Sam had always spoken that the eldest brother bit his lip to keep in the groan of utter despair, because the last thing Sam could use right now was being judged. “Damien... the offer...” _That_ surprised Damien.

“Look, Sammy, that offer doesn't expire tonight. I told you about it because... well...” He hesitated. The reason why he'd told his sibling about the offer already instead of waiting for doctor Harvey to sign the discharge papers in three weeks' time was to offer perspective. Right now, Sam's life was empty except for him: no job, no home, not even good health both mental and physical. The offer – extended by Sam's former boss, Lucian Parnell of Katchan Fire Inc., who had been hired by a mrs. Indigo from a company called Builders League United – was for a steady, high-earning pyrotechnics job, though the job requirements and profile were unlike anything Damien had seen. He'd promised the other man a decision within the month; he hadn't been expecting Sam to already consider it _now_ , however, because the entire aim of the one month period of consideration had been to not rush a decision at a time when Sam was feeling most vulnerable of all. “...Well, I told you about it just so you know your life is far from over yet. You fought for your life, and after that you can claw your way back to where you were before-”

“I can never... have things... the way they were before...”, Sam wheezed out. Damien knew the words made nothing but sense, but he'd rather die than admit it to his sibling; with no words of empty comfort to speak instead of a confirmation, all he could do was hug the bandage-riddled figure in the hospital bed as tightly as the healing skin and pus-encrusted bandages would allow as the croaky voice continued. “...I lost... s-so much... but I could... get something back... i-if I take... mister Parnell's offer...”

“Look, Sammy, don't rush this. Michael's death has you feeling vulnerable, and distraught, and that's not the best basis to make life decisions-”, Damien started to explain, only to get interrupted.

“I know. And this isn't... impulsive... or fuelled by regret... or guilt... I know what you... and doctor Harvey think... I _want_ this...”

“You want a job that's only got 'pyrotechnics' in the job title? A job that got described roughly in terms of 'you're supposed to burn other people to death for a living, and risk your own life doing so, but hey, it's okay because we have a _respawn machine_ that _cheats death_ -'”, Damien reacted wildly, only to get more vehemently shut up by his sibling, who cringed from the force of the words issuing from a burnt throat.

“I want it, yeah, Damien!” For a second, the room was silent, and then Sam drew a shaky breath that betrayed pain before adding more quietly and more hoarsely than before: “...I want the job. Regardless what I need to do. It's _work_. I... want to work. If I don't, all I _can_ do is _worry_ and _get more depressed_. So yeah, I want the job.” Damien looked at his sibling, seeing a fire in those brown eyes – a very familiar fire, he had to admit. He'd seen it dozens of times in his father, the one that Sam and Michael so resembled. It meant that nothing could happen to dissuade him from his thoughts; it meant he'd made up his mind. And it was exactly like that with Sam now, so he sighed and nodded slowly.

“If you're sure, Sam... I still don't like it, but it's your life. I'll call Lucian Parnell in the morning and tell him to look no further.”

“...Thanks, Damien...”, Sam admitted, sighing shakily and then turning slowly onto the other side, a sign as sure as any that exhaustion had once again hit and another two hours of nightmare-riddled sleep would follow for both of them.

 

Gabriel Dantan couldn't sleep. No matter how much he tried, no matter  _what_ he tried, whenever he closed his eyes, he kept seeing scenes from a life gone by. A life that burnt to cinders a long time ago. Scenes like seeing his mother sag into her chair at a restaurant, her face pale and covered with beads of cold sweat and with a purplish tinge to her lips... scenes like his sister crying when he'd confessed to her what he did to cope with the grief and guilt that followed his mother's death... scenes like his flight from his native country, too ashamed of himself and too haunted by the ghosts of his past to have a chance at recovery... and then, all too recent for comfort and all too painful for his troubled heart, scenes of how he'd screwed up the one chance he got, ended up in prison for arson, and only got out of that hell by going here. 'Here', of course, meaning on a dusty ex-military base in the middle of Illinois, surrounded by sixteen men and regularly trying to off eight of them in the line of duty. By dousing them with burning petrol, or shooting them with a shotgun or flare gun... or, of course, if all that failed, he could use his  _barb wire-covered axe_ as well to get whoever stood against him to die horribly and painfully...

All in all, Gabriel mused as he swung his tired, aching limbs out of the bed, it wasn't really a surprise that he couldn't sleep, with all the crap he'd seen in his thirty-five years of age. He felt like an old soul – and, in a way, he supposed he was, scarred by life as he'd become. As he got up out of bed, the form next to him groaned, and he grinned. Well, not  _everything_ in his life was fire and brimstone, of course. He did have a vice or two that took the edge off all of it, and it was one such vice that made itself heard just then.

“Shhh, ya just sleep on, Will, don't mind me...”, he whispered into the quiet, and the prone form groaned again, though this time not as protestingly. Gabriel mused, as he walked through his team's half of the base, that the scout had done more for his sanity than anyone else had yet succeeded in. Yet it sometimes felt wrong to stay with the man despite all the good he did.

“...Gabe, y'got trouble sleepin' too?” He looked up at the sound of someone else speaking softly into the night, noticing his team's engineer stand in the doorway of his room. Grant Dillinger looked at him in clear worry, a feat not even their team medic could emulate – and instantly, the pyrotechnician rolled his eyes.

“Yeah. Hell, I tried everythin' from counting sheep like a toddler to a li'l 'manipulation'-”

“Son, yew 'n me are gonna be gittin' along like a charm if'n yeh stop tellin' me about how yeh wanna git off.”, the engineer said in his usual southern lilt, his voice a little reproachful, and not for the first time Gabriel grinned apologetically as he felt lucky for the man's comradeship. “...So, did yeh try yer usual stress-relief?”, he asked – with any other man, it would evoke no response, but Gabriel gritted his teeth. Around him, the implication was just as effective as sniffing the air around him for any trace of gasoline or smoke hanging in his clothes.

“...Ya don't think you would've heard the door slam shut, old man? N'me dis pas-”

“Don't bother, 'm sorry ah asked, Gabe, son. ...Well, if y'ain't tried liquor yet, ah've got enough straight whisky t'drown a horse ten times over in mah stores, c'mon in.” Grant took a step aside to allow Gabriel entry into his bedroom-slash-office-slash-repair-shop, where a bottle of whisky and a half-empty glass already stood on the desk's edge as a testament to the insomnia the other man was suffering from as well. Gabriel whistled appreciatively as he caught sight of the half-empty bottle.

“Ya weren't kidding, man... your whole _room_ reeks of whisky. Wouldn't be surprised _that_ 's why you asked me 'bout tryin' to light something up – one spark and you'd be incinerated-”

“Don't disrespect th'man that's about t'give yeh a shot 'f the good stuff.”, Grant interrupted, and Gabriel bit his lip to keep himself from speaking any further. He hadn't meant it as disrespect, of course, but if Grant took it as such, he should keep his opinions to himself. Instead, he patiently waited for Grant to take a second glass and drop in two small white cubes before pouring a generous measure of scotch over them. “...Here y'go, son, don't drink 'er up too quickly.” It was a warning just as much as it was good advice, Gabriel knew, and so he took a light sip first. The taste was _strong_ , the alcohol in it making the entire surface of his mouth tingle, but after the initial burn came a more gentle aftertaste, fresh and slightly sweet, and Gabriel swallowed the sip of liquor with a grin.

“Surprenant- I mean, it's surprisingly nice. Not my usual poison of choice, but pleasant – if it don't burn the roof of your mouth off 'fore the aftertaste hits.”

“Now, Gabe, son, if'n she does, 's only 'cause yew ain't showed her the respect she's due.”, Grant said somewhat disapprovingly before lifting his own glass up, looking at it. “Whisky, when properly brewed an' distilled, 's like a classy lady. Lookit that color, th'way she's swirlin' 'round them ice cubes... that's class an' finesse righ' there. An' when y'taste her... first she'll claw like a banshee, but then she'll show how sweet an' refined she _really_ is.” The engineer took a sip from his own glass and sighed in satisfaction after a second. “Mmm, ain't nothin' that kin beat a nice glass 'f the good stuff tuh chase 'way the tension.”

“Tension, Grant?”, Gabriel asked, looking at the older man in surprise, wondering what kind of tension the man meant. Of course, Grant didn't seem to be in any more of a sharing mood than he usually was, so he shrugged and put his glass down again.

“Ain't nothin' fer _you_ t'lose sleep over, son. ...Why're you up, huh?”, he asked – Gabriel, having already expected the counter-question, sighed and patted his left upper arm. Not a lot of men on the team knew exactly what the tattoo on his arm was of, and only two of those men knew exactly what purpose it served for him, with Grant being one of those two. “Nightmares 'bout yer mom again, huh?”, he said softly, causing Gabriel to nod.

“Dieu me pardonne... I dreamt 'bout the restaurant again. Saw her face...” He reached for his glass to down the liquor and burn the sudden cold from the pit of his stomach – it was a testament of his gratitude to and respect for Grant that kept him from doing just that, instead taking an overlarge sip and wincing as the whisky burnt like a bonfire within the confines of his mouth. “...Grant, how's a man deal with somethin' like that without goin' crazy?”, he asked, and the engineer sighed.

“Find a joy t'balance it out, ah s'pose. Ah mean, y'got Billy...”

“Yeah, I do got Will, an' he's good for me...”, Gabriel said, hesitating for a second but then deciding to trust the other man and continuing in a softer, almost whisper-like tone: “...But there's nights that I wonder if him an' me... if it's _what I need_. I mean, we've been t'gether for well-on two years now, an' I'm still as passionate as I was on day one-”

“Gabe, son, _too much information_.”, Grant said semi-amusedly, downing another light sip of his drink of scotch; Gabriel presumed that, since he hadn't spoken up yet in his usual fatherly tone, he could continue, which he did with little hesitation.

“-but... well, you're not a blind or deaf man, Grant, you _know_ Will ain't the only one to... well, you know. It's not a sin, but sometimes... sometimes I feel like I'm just stringin' Billy along, and it feels wrong.”

“Well, Gabe, son...”, Grant said, looking pensive as ever, his voice once again bearing that fatherly tone that Gabriel knew all too well as signifying that Grant was taking up his role of 'team father' again, “...yeh may be right. If yeh don't love Will like he loves you, it ain't right that yeh let 'im think that y'do. But th'others yeh been with, do yeh love _them_?” Gabriel shook his head vehemently.

“No, pas du tout – they know it, Will knows it, an' _I_ know it best 'f all. I ain't let anyone but Will fall asleep in my bed, and I don't always want... well, you know, the obvious. Sometimes, I like to jus' _talk_ to him.” The engineer stayed quiet for a while after that, scratching an apparent blemish on the back of his hand; when he spoke up, however, he did so solemnly, his voice calm and quiet.

“...Love's equal parts want an' need, Gabe – so even if'n yeh ain't sure yeh _need_ 'im, y'still clearly want 'im in yer life. As a lover, ah mean.”

“Well, yeah, 'course I want him in my life!”, Gabriel reacted, mentally forming the answer to his questions already before Grant voiced it for him.

“...Well, then, that's all y'gotta have. Y'want him with yeh, y'need him in some way... if'n it ain't love, it sure as hell _looks_ like love t'me...”, the engineer said, downing the last of his drink and prompting Gabriel to do the same. As soon as he'd put his glass on the table again, he turned to Grant and spoke reverently to the man that had once again helped him in his hour of need.

“Grant, mon ami... I'm gonna leave ya to go an' sleep again. I think I ain't gonna dream about it all anymore.” The engineer nodded, clearly grateful for the speed at which Gabriel walked off – that was something the pyro could see plain as day – but just as clearly glad that he would be able to sleep.

“Yeah, 'm gonna try that 's well. Gabe, son, remember, ah'm here for yeh, if'n yeh need someone fer talkin'.” It was the engineer's job to say that, of course – for the first two years of Gabriel's stay on base, Grant had been his on-site therapist, and for the seven-or-so years that'd followed, he'd kept a watered-down, more friend-like, version of that role going even if Gabriel had semi-annual visits from his psychiatrist. Those visits were largely about his nightmares and the urge to light fires whenever his stress levels peaked, with doctor Hayakawa having a theory about the nightmares and the guilt fuelling his pyromania, which in turn made him feel more guilty and thus have more nightmares.

The truth was, Gabriel mused, as long as he'd had a counterpart on the other team, he'd been okay. Lander had been his match in just about everything  _including_ his pyromania, and during the stretch they fought each other during the day, they'd just as frequently had drinking matches in the weekends or nights where they slept together under the cover of darkness... or deep discussions about which would make a better conductor, graphene or liquefied silver. They'd been friends, never naming themselves lovers but knowing that it was more than what they both pretended it was... but then, barely four years ago, Lander's pyromania won out and he died in the fire he'd set himself, and Gabriel was left behind feeling alone and somewhat afraid. His own urges had doubled in intensity – not just the pyromania, even, but also his other forms of stress relief Lander had eagerly demonstrated such as drinking and sleeping around. There were more than enough willing men on both teams back then, and he hadn't let anything waylay his efforts. He'd even – only once, and in a fit of alcohol-fuelled madness – propositioned Grant once, and it was his friend's refusal that got him to reconsider his standards. It had become a little more subdued since then, and at least the promiscuity had withered away when Billy and he had started sharing more than just a room, only two years before, but lately... lately, Gabriel admittedly had started drinking more, and on more occasions, not to mention he'd been banned from the battlefield twice in the previous month, both times because he'd been caught in the hallway past dinnertime with a gasoline can on him. He'd indeed been looking to start fires, but his denial had been more for himself than for the Administrator.

And then, of course, the previous week – not even five days before, if he was honest – he'd been outside for a midnight stroll, intending to dip into his hidden secret stash in order to relax after a long day of battles and tension, when he'd met Graeme and he'd ended up finding his stress relief at the demoman's capable hands. Admittedly, the both of them had been drinking, but neither of them had been anywhere near drunk enough to claim temporary loss of judgement. He'd taken a hasty shower before rejoining Will in his bed, but that had been the first night he hadn't been able to sleep.

“...Grant, I, uh, might take ya up on that offer if things end up outta control, okay?”, Gabriel admitted in the doorway of his friend's room, causing the engineer to nod solemnly, as if guessing his thoughts.

“Yew be sure t'do that, son – or _'fore_ things git outta hand, y'hear?” It was a gentle suggestion for Gabriel to think about things, of course, and for any other man it woud have the effect Grant intended, but Gabriel had already passed what most men would still feel comfortable with and had gotten into the terrain where life just felt _hard_ no matter how the cookie crumbled. It was due to that reason that Gabriel nodded without answering as he backed out of the engineer's quarters and back into the hallway; and it was due to that reason, Gabriel himself supposed as he lay back down next to his lover again, that his nightmares were so unforgiving. After all, he told himself as his mind slipped back into unconsciousness, a man that had virtually killed his mother, estranged his family, lied to all his loved ones both past and present and subscribed to every sin under the glorious sun... how did a man like that even rest easily at night? And, more to the point, how could a man like that, a man like _him_ , still _deserve_ to rest easily at night?

 


	2. Still wear the scars (like it was yesterday)

“Truckie, you outdid yourself!”, Jane Doe boomed as the majority of the BLU team headed to the amusement room of the base. Some, in particular Arsène the spy and Yaroslav, cast the soldier scathing looks, but Dell grinned as he received the compliment.

“Thank yeh kindly, Jane, it was nuthin'. An' ah needed t'cook somethin' with as little dirty dishes 's possible.” The engineer disappeared into the kitchen, followed by the scout of the team, leaving Jane to turn to their resident doctor, Siegfried Steinheim.

“...Hmm, it vas a good day, vas it not, Herr Doe?”, the medic said appreciatively, prompting the soldier to shrug before replying.

“I guess, yeah. Not too many losses...” Dell passed him a beer – the engineer and the soldier were the veterans of the bunch, both already having served for twenty years at the base and having worked for the Builders League for almost all their adult lives, and they'd developed an understanding both in combat and outside of it – and while the soldier opened it, he spoke on with a grin:” ...and now that our team's finally gettin' a pyrotechnician, we might fare better tomorrow!”

“No kiddin', Jane, ya think we're gonna do better just 'cause we finally gettin' ourselves a pyro, too?!”, the scout said, grinning as he dashed from the fridge to the table where he'd left his laptop for playing online Army of Death 4 Ultimate, three cans of Bonk! Atomic energizer firmly in his hands. “If he's a fire-crazy suckah like Dante, ya ain't gonna think so for long, just sayin'.”, he added as he sat down, cracking his fingers before starting up the game proper. The medic walked over while he did so and picked up one of the cans of Bonk, hitting the scout on the head with his free hand.

“You should learn a bit of zhe respect for your zuperiors, Archie... he is Herr Doe to you, not Jane. And I told you before, do not drink zhat many energy beverages or your heart vill fail one day!” He'd meant to inspire the scout to think about his actions; however, all he achieved in doing was making the scout rub the backside of his head with an expression of annoyance before answering in a similar tone.

“Can't help it, doc, I'm addicted – yeah, yeah, 'Herr Doktor Steinheim'...”, he amended when the medic glared at him, causing the older man to sigh and shake his head.

“I honestly do not know how ve are goink to teach you respect...”

“Do not worry, Siegfried, he learn respect when he grow up someday, da?”, the heavy weapons expert said, walking in from the kitchen with one of his eternal Sandviches. He then looked at the engineer that entered, picked up the keys to their company van and headed for the door again. “Dell, where you go this late?”

“Imma just gonna pick up the new guy, Yar, okay? Be back in an hour, he's at the station right now, called just a couple'a minutes ago...”

“Haff fun...”, the medic said absent-mindedly, while the scout rolled his eyes and turned to his game again, the first can of Bonk already empty.

“...Doctor Steinheim, what d'you think?”, Jane asked softly as he and the medic sat down on the sofa, the television show Yaroslav was watching providing background noise. “About our new pyro, I mean. You get privileged information-”

“Yes, well, zhat information is privileged for a very good reazon, herr Doe, I cannot share it vizh you. But I can share vizh you zhat I _didn't_ get zhe privileged information zhis time.” Now the soldier understandably looked shocked, regarding him like he'd grown an extra head.

“You _didn't_ get medical records?”

“Nein. Zhe only zhings I know is zhat our new pyro is _not_ a convicted pyromaniac like herr Dantan from RED-”

“Thank tha fuckin' Lord.”, Archie commented from his spot at his laptop – a second can of Bonk having joined the first emptied one. Jane rose from the sofa, glowering at the scout – evidently, the soldier had run out of patience finally, and his voice was curt and imperative when he barked out.

“ _Private_ , that kind of language is _disrespectful_ and I'd be very _careful_ if I didn't want to get a _lot of trouble!_ The Administrator could replace you like this-”, he said, snapping his fingers as he towered over the minute frame of the scout, making him look every bit like a recalcitrant child, “-and then you'd go back to a juvenile delinquency center!” When Archie looked pale and turned hastily back to his game, Jane walked back stiffly to the sofa, though he already snickered when he sat back down next to Siegfried. “...You were saying, doctor?”

“Ach, wo war ich denn? ...Ah, yes, zo all I know is zhat our new pyro did not get zhe conviction for zhe pyromania like herr Dantan, but I also know zhat he vill need a _lot_ of medication and a _lot_ of bandages und disinfeczhant...”

 

Dell had been to the train station more often than he cared to remember in the previous years. As the team's engineer, he was responsible for transporting all their supplies and new team members to the base – normally, together with either the pyro or the demoman, but since Tavish and Graeme were a hazard in their own right half of the time and Gabriel was even  _worse,_ and BLU hadn't had a pyro in five years anymore, he and his counterpart Grant from RED did the runs together, helping each other. However, now he found that the empty station looked and felt a  _lot_ more eerie than it usually did. Perhaps it was because he didn't know what to expect – last time he'd had to drive out here to pick up a team mate, they'd needed a scout – which always meant a long, slender, young guy with only a few bags of items with him. But a pyro could be anyone, since they had to wear a baggy fireproof suit and a gas mask all of the time.

Suddenly, from the corner of his eye, movement caught his eye and he saw a lone figure walk up slowly, carrying a few packs. Since the station was barely ever used, Dell knew that that had to be their man.

“Howdy!”, the engineer said loudly, waving as he got out of the pick-up truck – the first thing he noticed as he walked towards the figure was the mask the man wore – not a gas mask, but a mask of bandages that left only the eyes and mouth uncovered, and both looked raw and slightly bloody. It looked so much like a stereotypical madman that Dell nearly stepped back hastily – but he caught himself before showing any kind of fear. After all, the man wouldn't feel very welcome if he got greeted with outright panic, especially from a man like him that should know better. Instead, Dell forced calm and even a tone of amiability in his voice. “Hey? You Sam Tennant?”

“Mmhm...”, was the answer, followed by the man approaching him. He carried three suitcases by himself – one was a carry-on case that Sam had slung over his form somewhat discomfortably, and while the second one was a regular suitcase, the third one was long and significantly more bulky-looking. Quickly, he calculated how it would be easiest to divide the load and quickly found that the only way it'd work to get back to the pick-up truck was if the new pyro carried the largest of the three suitcases.

“Mind carrying the long one? The others look like they're the heaviest, but I can't carry three atta time...”

“No prob...”, Sam said, and Dell noticed instantly that the man's voice sounded gritty as if his throat was parched. Almost, Dell offered him a drink of water or a cough drop until he finally tied the hoarseness and the raw skin around the man's eyes and mouth together to the logical conclusion: the man had been in an accident and had clearly not fully recovered just yet. “That's my new weapon, anyway, wouldn't want to give it away...” The second phrase clued Dell in on another remarkable trait of his team's new pyrotechnician: Sam Tennant apparently came from abroad – if Dell could hazard a guess, he would readily guess that the man had come from England. That was different – not impossible, he knew, especially since it'd taken BLU _three years_ to find them a new pyro, but definitely a surprise. Sam shuffled towards the pick-up truck, clearly having exhausted his conversational matter, and Dell realized that he was maybe overanalyzing the situation again, sighing before putting the suitcases in the van before loading up the pyrotechnician and moving out. In the pick-up truck, however, Dell tried to pick up the conversation a second time, hoping that the newest addition to the BLU team would have gotten over his initial shy or awkward feeling; however, he soon found out that he was wrong when every attempt he made at conversation was answered with short, monosyllabic or grunted answers.

“So... yew're gonna be our new pyrotechnician?”

“Mmhm.”

“Mind if we call you pyro for short?”

“No.”

“Had a pleasant trip?”

“Mmhm.” It went on that way for the entire drive to the apartments, where the Administrator-General was already waiting for them. Dell had never liked the woman much – she reminded him too much of a vulture, what with her overly obvious make-up and the loose, wrinkly skin in her neck. She clearly seemed extraordinarily taken by Sam, if her instantly jumping up and greeting the newest team member was any indication. Sam didn't even have time to take any of his luggage yet when she grabbed hold of him.

“Ah, Sam Tennant? Follow me, please...” She had her lacquered talons already embedded in the pyro's arm, clutching it like a life line in a storm – when Dell noticed Sam's unease and made to speak up, the Administrator was quick to notice him and send him off in one breath. “...Mr. Conagher, please tell your teammates to expect an extra briefing regarding your new team member before your morning runs. Oh, and take those bags inside, it'd be a shame if Sam had to do that himself after a long, tiring day, especially in a condition like this.”, she said before whisking off the pyro, who followed meekly, and for the first time the engineer noticed how the man had a slightly limping gait, as if both his legs were stiff. '...Huh, we only had 'bout twenty minutes' worth'a driving...', Dell mused, feeling slightly baffled as he picked the pyro's bags and carried them inside the compound, dropping them off in front of the room Sam would be sharing with their scout, Archie. When the engineer realized that neither Archie or their new pyro had been informed of the fact that they'd have to share a room, he shook his head and returned to the amusement room, intending to watch a bit of television before turning in for the night. Archie's yawn alerted him to the fact that the scout was still there playing his game – five cans of Bonk now stood empty beside him, and the sixth was downed in a single gulp before the scout got up, stretching as he rose. It was such a showcase of tiredness, and Dell would've seen it as such if he didn't know that Archie had drunk all the energy drinks he had.

“Arch, how can ya still yawn when you're hyped up on caffeine?”, the engineer asked matter-of-factly, no longer surprised by the behaviour, and the scout looked his way, startled, before shrugging.

“I dunno – only got two things ta keep me awake, Dell: crazy doses a' Bonk and the thrill of shooting the REDs to shreds...” He closed his laptop and meant to walk off with it tucked safely under his arm, but right at that time, a commercial of a new brand of champagne aired on the television set that Dell had just switched on, showcasing a half-naked actress seductively sipping champagne from a lounge chair that looked just like a giant champagne glass when the camera panned away. All in all, it was barely a surprise that the scout grinned and licked his lips. “...Heh, maybe there's three things... Holy fuck, that's one hot numbah... Anyway, 'night, Dell, man...”, the scout said, walking to the door before turning around again, looking a little pensive all of a sudden. “Say, Dell, tha new guy's sharin' with me, ain't he?”

“Think he does, yeah...”, Dell said cautiously, recognizing the wary tone in the scout's voice clearly. If he was too forward now, he risked having trouble on his hands, and if the scout killed their new pyro, or their newest team member would be forced to actually kill someone on his first night, they'd have a lot more than just annoyance to deal with. Yet he also knew that he needed to be forward, because the scout needed to understand that the situation was the way it was. “...We only got five rooms here, son, so we don't have the luxury of choice. 'S the only place still left... what with doctor Steinheim and Yaroslav bunkin' together nowadays... Theo an' Arsine sharin' too... An' then there's Tavish and Jane bunkin' together, an' my own room's practically a storage shed with a bed built in... Anyway, guy's name is Sam Tennant, and way he grunted at me on the way over here, he'll be fast asleep by the time yeh git up there...”

“I hope so, 'cause I prob'ly just feel awkward anyway... Y'know, not bein' formally introduced and stuff like that...” Archie grinned as he said it, causing Dell to grin as well, realizing the hidden thought behind Archie's words. The scout intended to poke fun at the absurdity of his situation, knowing he'd find someone he didn't even know consider part of his room as his own. His answer was spoken in much the same tone.

“Since when did we do that ninny crap anyway, son?!” A Dell waved the scout off, turning back to the television show he'd put on, he mused that he didn't need to worry overmuch. Archie seemed okay with the sacrifice he was expected to make, and Sam seemed like an okay guy; there was really no reason to expect the both of them not to be able to get along...

 

Sam came to his new room to find the door open and snores issue from inside. He'd already gotten the explanation about his new living conditions, so it didn't come as much of a surprise to him anymore to figure out that he had to share his room with the team's 'reconaissance' member, to which the Administrator-General had referred to as either 'the scout' or 'mister Jessup'. He seemed to be fast asleep, and Sam didn't want to wake him up just for a meaningless introduction that they could just as well have in the morning – not to mention, of course, Sam mused as he undressed and redressed his bandages, that not having his newest team member awake meant less awkward questions and horrified gazes at his still-stiff limbs and the suppurating skin of his joints. Freeing his arms and legs of the pressure of the bandages felt like a liberation, even more so when Sam considered how stiffly he'd had to move all day due to them. But rather than focus on how badly he'd been moving, he chose to put his thoughts to the change of environment, the fact that he'd had fresh, clean air for the first time. It felt like the stench of the hospital still clung to him, but his lungs were free of it, and his nostrils flared when he took another deep breath to smell the scent of sweaty socks, wet wood and just a hint of gasoline, as if to remind Sam of what he'd come to do.

'So this is what I'll be doing for a living... well, it could've been a lot worse. I could've followed Damien's first advice and pursued a career at Neoplast pushin' papers... ugh...', he thought, horrified by the mere thought of sitting behind a desk and answering phonecalls like a mindless robot. 'No, this is the kind of job I love, even if it's a bit unusual, so I'd better get used to it, heh...' Sam opened the suitcases that contained the pyro gear and grinned. He'd gotten the gear mailed by Builders League United, and when Damien had opened the package and read the explanation, he'd nearly fainted. It did look imposing even when he hadn't put it on before – but now, when Sam unpacked it carefully, laying the items out on the desk beside his bed, the gear looked even more odd, and the job seemed all the more intriguing because of that fact. 'Let's see, I got one grade triple-A fireproof suit in the BLU colour, one Triple Safety mask with oxygen tank like the doctor suggested, my new standard issue flamethrower and fireaxe... and a pump-action shotgun... ah, tomorrow'll be a good day!' With that thought, Sam also finished rebandaging himself, after which he put on his pyjamas – a light blue nightgown with a pattern of small, dark blue flowers outlined in white – and crawled under the covers. 'Who knows...', he added, his eyes closing and his mind wandering drowsily, '...maybe tomorrow'll be so good that I won't have to worry about my bandages anymore...'

 

“Goooooood morning!” Sam's first introduction with the scout was loud, sudden, and startling to say the least: before the man finished his sentence, Sam's fireaxe already rested snugly against his neck. By the time Sam was able to open his eyes to see who was responsible for his rude awakening, he found the culprit to be a scrawny, very scared-looking man dressed only in briefs. That sight, more than anything, made the anger flow from Sam's system until he ground out an irritated response.

“Don't shit with me that early in the morning!” The boy – he looked barely a day over eighteen – looked himself over, as if checking whether or not he'd just wet himself, before continuing his stare at the blood- and pus-stained gauze covering the pyro's face with barely veiled horror, and then at the rest of his body which was either covered with similar bandages or with the baby blue flower-patterned nightgown, which was by now slightly stained. All in all, it made Sam feel uncomfortable again, reminding him of all he'd lost in that fire. “What are you staring at?” Only then did Sam become aware of the fireaxe still in his hands, lowering it slowly.

“M-ma-man, what'd you get hit by?” The accent was easy to spot – East coast, most probably New York – and he tried to act slick as well about the entire encounter but failed miserably, causing the pyro to chuckle hoarsely.

“Thirty gallons of hot flaming gasoline. Oh, and skin grafts. Lots and lots of skin grafts.”

“Holy shit on a stick, ya haveta be kidding me!”, the scout said, checking himself again as if to make one hundred percent sure that he hadn't actually wet himself before laughing softly and sincerely, causing Sam to relax as well. He had a full, hearty laugh, indicative of an easy-going character, which was just the thing he'd been looking forward to in his team mates. “'Well, least it's less fucked up than what happened to some'a the rest of us... By the way, you gotta be our new pyro – Dell already said I'd haveta share... so, uh, how ya doin'? 'Scuse the rudeness, by the way, my name's Archie Jessup, I'm tha scout for this band-a-misfits... Ya gonna meet them in about half an hour.” Sam smiled and extended his hand to the scout both as a greeting and a peace offering, elaborating both in his reply.

“Sam Tennant, pleasure to meet you – and sorry for the axe, I tend to go Shining when loud voices interrupt my sleep...”

“...Shinin'?”, the scout asked obliviously, and Sam rolled his eyes.

“You know, 'the Shining'? 'Heeeeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny!', ring any bells?” When the realization visibly set in, Sam chuckled and shook his head. Clearly the scout wasn't much for cult horror movies. Fortunately, Archie didn't seem to be too bothered by Sam's amusement.

“Oh yeah, that movie! Jeez, and here I thought that RED pyro was axe crazy...” It was the first mention of Sam's counterpart and, by extension, of the 'enemy' team, and Sam's enthusiasm was hardly held back when he spoke up.

“I'd love to meet the guy face to face...” Archie seemed to interpret his enthusiasm the right way, because he replied with a weary sigh.

“Ya would... two axe-crazy psycho sons of bitches brought together...” Sam rolled his eyes – it figured that the scout would reduce his new 'profession' to 'axe-crazy psycho sons of bitches' – and took off his nightgown, stretching his weary limbs. However, that gesture seemed to draw his new room mate's attention to his catheter that was fastened to his leg by means of a velcro tape. “Ohohow man, ya got a catheter in ya bladder too, dude?!”

“Because doing it the regular way hurts like all hell...”, Sam replied, and the scout blanched, evidently making a very accurate guess about what 'hurts like all hell' meant. Sam had only had the catheter changed when he was conscious on one occasion, and that had been when he'd been preparing to leave the hospital. His pain threshold was high, he'd been on heavy painkillers, and he'd _still_ cried like a baby when the doctor inserted the catheter. Archie summed it up excellently the next second.

“...Man, why aint you shakin' your fist at heaven? God dealt you the wrong hand-a-cards...”

“Fortune deals, Archie, and you play. It was my own fault for getting doused in burning petrol...” Sam felt a weight settle on his shoulders again with those words – because, truly, all the pain he felt from his burns and all the consequences was nothing compared to the agony it gave him knowing that Michael would still be alive if he'd done something, anything, better – and looked at his hands again, heaving a sigh. “Could you go eat breakfast now? Those bandages won't change themselves...” It was an excuse as transparent as ever before to Sam, but Archie either didn't know so or he knew and understood, because he quickly walked away from the room, leaving Sam to peel off the bandages slowly, changing them as doctor Harvey had taught him in the hospital; while he wrapped his chest tightly in new bandages, he recited the verses of his favourite poem. 'Like fire it spread and like flames it grew, undaunted by fear and guided by will, until the shaking earth calmer grew, and all lay burning, and all lay still. The heart that had guided the blaze's path was young and sweet and melancholy, but in her eyes now lay that wrath, and she ignited in her fury. Like a candle she burnt bright, like a candle in the night, and by that glow of fire's light, she sighed his name and died...' As always when arriving at the last part, Sam added the pained thought: 'Ah hell, Michael, why'd you have to run and die? ...Gods, will I ever be able to forgive you? And will I ever be able to forgive _myself_? ' His eyes fell on the multitude of posters littering the walls: baseball teams, energy drink commercial posters and pinups – some oldfashioned, some relatively modern and scantily-clad, and some just bare naked. Obviously the scout, Archie, was a typical hormonal, skirt-chasing young man – causing Sam to grin. 'At least these guys will prove a diversion...'

 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the compound, Gabriel groaned as he woke up. Opening one eye revealed a battlefield around him: clothes lay strewn around his bedside, some of which seemed familiar and some of which felt alien in the confines of his room, and next to him, an unfamiliar form graced his bed. The snores that issued from the other man made the RED pyro blanch and look at the other bed in the room, revealing it empty and cleanly made, which proved that Billy hadn't slept in his own bed the previous night – which in turn proved that Gabriel had either chased him off explicitly or he'd come in at some point during the night and caught him stepping out, driving the scout to sleep in Grant's room. Again, Gabriel groaned, this time in earnest, and Graeme spoke up from next to him drowsily.

“Ach, leave me, lad... 's not even noon...”

“Graeme, damn it! Told ya, never when Will can catch us, espèce d'idiote, and _never fall the fuck asleep in my bed_!” With a push that was meant to wake the demoman up but achieved nothing, Gabriel vented his frustration; once he realized that the only way to wake the Scotsman up was by the scent of breakfast, the pyro got up out of the bed and grabbed his usual set of clothes – track pants and a white sleeveless shirt, with a white bandage for his upper left arm – along with a towel and soap before heading to the shower, muttering angrily as he undressed. “...Merde, j'suis un tel idiot... what kind of asshole am I, doin' that to Will... t'me _degoûtes_ , Dantan, j'te jure, tu m'as failli de nouveau-”

“Gabriel, would ya stop yer gawd-damn whinin'?”, a voice behind him said sternly, and he turned around to find Grant stand in the doorway to the changing area, carrying a similar bundle of clothing and shower articles to his own. “...Now, ah don'' even know what's worse – you doin' that t'poor Billy, you _hatin'_ yerself for what y'did, or you bein' too distracted t'even think straight. Better git'cher head back in the game, son, 'fore yeh git yer ass burnt.” It was that final sentence that made Gabriel focus again on the reason why he'd felt nervous the night before.

“Shit, yeah, BLU's got a pyro too... man, can't wait to meet _l'espèce de fou_ they found willin' to take up a flamethrower and start burnin' others for a living. ...Grant, I know I ain't have the right to ask for favors, not the way I keep screwin' up with Will-”

“Yeh're right, y'ain't got th'right t'be askin' for no favors...”, the engineer started sternly, though he softened his gaze and his stance the next second to add: “...But I'm'a tell Billy y'ain't nothing but a fool an' yeh hate yerself fer bein' the way yew are. Betterin' yer life's somethin' no one kin do for yeh, though, Gabriel, son. If'n Billy decides he ain't puttin' up with'cher shit no more, he's right t'do so.”

“J'sais, Grant, mon ami.”, Gabriel said with a sigh, shaking his head as no reply came: heading into the shower area, he decided to at least try and fight his impulses when it came to stress relief. If that meant shutting himself into his room at night so he wouldn't walk straight into temptation, then so be it. He loved the scout too much to cause him hurt.

 


	3. Don't let me catch you slipping

Sam checked himself over one last time once he'd rebandaged himself again fully – it'd be gruesome to show up at breakfast looking like the Monster of Frankenstein come to life – he put on some easy clothes he could easily wear under his new fireproof suit and walked to the breakfast room, preparing himself mentally for the looks of the rest of the team. However, the stares he got were more unsettling than he'd thought. Some, like the dark-skinned, eyepatch-wearing man, looked in surprise at his bandages, but one or two men seemed genuinely upset by the state of what was visible of him. In the end, Sam felt like he had to either run away or break the tension by speaking up, and he chose the last option, softly and shyly muttering a greeting.

“Hiya, gentlemen...” It was silent for maybe a second, but then someone else – the bulky man that sat at the breakfast table shovelling porridge into his mouth with a soup spoon – replied in a clearly enthusiastic tone, his accent heavy and clearly showing his Russian descent.

“Oh! New pyrotechnician is tiny and thin, like little girl!” Sam was unsure if he had meant it as a compliment until the man followed it with a round of rowdy laughter. “Ha ha ha ha! You and Archie both tiny and thin like little girl, which is maybe good thing. I am Yaroslav Charistov, but you can call me Yaro. I am team's heavy weapons guy. You can meet my weapon later, Sasha will _love_ little tiny pyro!”

“It's a pleasure, Yaroslav... Yaro... and I'm sure I'll love meeting your weapon later. Sasha, right?”, Sam said with a smile, feeling the unease ebb away from the room and sizing up the tall man that stood silently in a corner of the room, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and having a machete dangling from his belt, which told him it had to be the team's sniper. “And you must be mister Mundy!”

“How'ya doin', mate?”, the Australian said with a grin – it was slightly too eager, but Sam chalked that down to the fact that the team didn't seem to rarely get new members included, plus the Administrator had mentioned the previous pyro had left the team five years prior. When he smiled back, the other man nodded. “Jus' call me Ted or Theo, rest of the misfits do tha' olready...” He then motioned around the room, elaborating. “The others're doctor Siegfried Stoynheim, who insists on being addressed as 'Doctor Steinheim'; our drill sarge, lieutenant Jane Doe; Dell Conagher, our engineer; and Tavish Degroot, our demolition man and your countryman.”

“Mun-deh, I'm Sco’’ish, no' English, and yeh'd dew bes' to remember the fac'!”, the tall dark man voiced, his voice slurring slightly, and Sam looked at the bottle the man held in his hand. It figured that a Scotsman would have a _whisky_ drinking problem – even if that unsettled him. He still remembered how the Administrator had described the other team members' jobs, and if he wasn't mistaken, mister Degroot's job was mainly the manufacture and use of explosives, hardly a job that was fit for shaking hands or an alcohol-clouded mind. Still, he figured the man looked relatively whole and, apart from his eye wound, unscarred, and thought that it wasn't his job to judge his team members before he'd seen them in action, so he merely commented drily on his half-empty bottle.

“That proud of your national treasure, hm?” He didn't reply, but he could feel rather than see or hear the collective intake of breath at what the rest clearly considered either an insult or a note of distrust, so he softened the statement with his next words: “...Don't worry, Scottish and English are worlds apart, and I know it.”, Sam said as he extended his hand, which the demo man took hesitantly before grinning.

“Ah, yeh're no' bad, laddeh... but jus' beware, we cannae protect yew out there all the time... don' risk anythin' yeh don' wanta lose yet and yeh'll fare okay...” Sam instantly corrected his opinion about the dark-skinned Scotsman: his voice didn't waver, his hand didn't shake at all, and for a man that seemed to drink whisky just as easily as water he acted just as sober as any of the others. Tavish, meanwhile, had punched into thin air, it seemed, but a second later a figure seemed to materialize against his fist, causing Sam to gasp before the explanation he'd gotten the previous evening came to mind again and the pyro realized that the man had to be the resident spy. “Arsène, yeh know the administrator dinnae like yehr performance las' year... yeh shoul' really be present when a new member's introduced... Uh...”

“Sam Tennant... expert in fire, flares, fireworks and explosives.”, the pyro supplied, and Arsène extended a hand, pulling his ski-mask off with the other hand to reveal a handsome face with scars running over his cheeks.

“Eet eez my pleasure, of course...”, the Frenchman said, his voice heavily accented as well but at the same time smooth and pleasant, causing Sam to smile again.

“Enchanté, monsieur Arsène-”

“Oh, mais tu parles le français!”, he said in clear surprise, and the pyro nodded.

“J'ai étudiée en France pendant une année pour apprendre comment ce fait une show du feu d'artifice compliqué, donc mon français est... du niveau bon.”, Sam said modestly, only to be corrected by the Frenchman.

“Tu le parle très bien, mon ami. Your level of French, eet eez... very good. Better zen most.”

“Mille fois merci, Arsène! ...So, uh, how long do I still have to eat breakfast?”, Sam asked, his thoughts focused on the most important matter at hand again, and the heavy weapons expert answered amiably.

“Eat in peace... battle start in hour.”, Yaroslav said before sitting down next to the medic and engaging the man in a conversation partially in German and partially in Russian, allowing Sam sit down to his right, which ended him up next to the scout and able to nudge Archie in the ribs. The scout looked at him in surprise at first, but before even a second had passed, his eyes betrayed worry and the tone of his voice was quiet and slightly bashful in stark contrast to how Sam had judged his character before.

“Yo man, how ya doin'?” It was clear to Sam that his new room mate thought his injuries grave and even potentially crippling, but Sam smiled again and gladly corrected that mental image for his new friend.

“After a day or two, the pain should diminish and the wounds should look less gruesome than they do now. The pus... well, the pus means my skin grafts are growing and covering the removed skin that got burnt, so I really am happy with the dirty bandages... But the pain right now is still intense – not intense enough to stop me, though. I'm on a diet of painkillers, immunosuppressants, steroids, probiotics, antibiotics, and general panacea, and I think I'm supposed to be sleeping in a test tube right now, but doctor Harvey – he's my supervising doctor – gave me permission to come here and start the job early. I... all the laying about wasn't doing my mental recovery any good, and I was supposed to start more intensive physiotherapy anyway, so he advocated me leaving the hospital a month before I was due. The condition is that I'm followed up closely, though, by Doc Harvey. So the doctor's coming here for my weekly exam in five days, and then again the week after, and the week after that, and at the end of week three I'll be gone for a month due to reconstructive surgery and revalidation, and then... you lot'll have a pyro for life!”

“Jus' the way we like it, laddeh!”, the demo-man chimed, passing a sandwich – a 'sandvich' as Yaroslav called it from the pyro's left – on to Sam before turning back to the soldier, who gave Sam an appraising look and then an approving nod. All in all, when the pyro looked around the room, he saw a tightly-knit team that had nevertheless scooted aside to give him room, and that was already great. Shaking his head and taking a first bite of the sandvich, meanwhile pondering how the battle would go, Sam felt ready for whatever the day would bring.

 

Gabriel took a shaky breath as he sat down on top of the roof, looking down over the battlefield with his breakfast in one hand and the bandages usually wrapped around his left arm in his other. He'd been eating his sandwich with bacon and salad quietly in the deserted dining room of his team when Billy had entered and had started an argument with him about the previous evening and how he'd caught Gabriel in the act with Graeme – it'd been mostly as Gabriel had thought it would, the scout's anger understandable and his temper fiery but still mostly hurt... and then, of course, Graeme walked into the room and the scout had started a shouting match with the demoman instead, which had escalated to the point where both men weren't talking to each other and looking like they were plotting bloody murder on either each other, on him, or  _both_ . Gabriel didn't even need Grant's look of barely veiled exasperation or doctor Hartmann's angry groan to grab what little he'd gathered to eat and flee the scene before he got murdered by his team. He'd looked for places to run, had contemplated everywhere from a toilet stall to the BLU side, even; in the end, however, he'd chosen his usual refuge, the place where none of his team mates save perhaps Chris, their sniper, or Grant would think of disturb him: the roof of their respawn room. And once he'd come up there, he'd unwound the bandages on his arm and had whispered his tearful regrets and painful shame to the one person that he knew would love him above all.

“...Maman, parfois... parfois j'ne sais plus quoi faire... sometimes I don't have a fuckin' clue... I feel like I'm a disappointment to everyone an' everything that ever loved me... j'ai plus mes parents, j'ai plus ma chère soeur... et mon amant, je lui fait pleurer, je lui fait mal... how come I can't love Will with all my heart an' soul? I love him, I know it, I fuckin' love him, but then why...? Pourquoi...?” No answer came, save for the wind that almost tenderly blew through his tousled hair and cooled the hot streaks of wetness where tears had run over his cheeks before. It felt so much like his mother's slender hand wiping his tears away and then running a hand through his hair, just like she'd done when he was a child, that Gabriel opened his eyes and looked at the sky where barely a cloud was visible, half expecting to see his mother's face. All he could see, of course, was how closely the blue of the sky mirrored the blue his late mother's eyes had been. “...J'ai besoin d'une ange... If angels exist, maman, send me one that'll either set me straight or that'll cleanse my sinner's life right outta me. I don't deserve to live if all I do is hurt people.”

“Gabriel, y'mind gittin' down from there?!” Grant's voice issued from the shadows at the other side of the building a heartbeat after Gabriel finished his sentence, causing the pyro to mutter a soft curse and shout back.

“I'm good up here, Grant, least I ain't hurtin' no one when I'm up here.”

“C'mon, son, yeh're bein' too harsh on yerself – yeh screwed up, yeah, but yew ain't some kind'f fiend or somethin' like tha'. Now git'cher ass down 'ere so Billy kin talk t'yeh.” The mention of his lover made Gabriel bandage his arm even more quickly before practically sliding down the ladder he'd propped up against the side of the building before, his breakfast taken care of in three large bites before he turned to the engineer, who wordlessly motioned for the door into the RED compound where Billy stood waiting for him.

“Gabe, man, you're a fuckin' prick, ya know?! It ain't even the first time, or the second, or the tenth! Do ya really need to get ya rocks off somewhere else that bad?” As Gabriel had expected, Billy was fuming with rage, and he was just piecing together a reply that wouldn't hurt his lover any more than he already was hurt when that anger turned to grief in the blink of an eye and his voice shivered just as much as his bandaged hands. “'C-cause if ya need it, I... I mean, I'm willin' to... share ya _body_...” It was clear from the way he emphasized that last word what the scout meant – he was willing to not be the only one that Gabriel slept with so long as he had his heart.

“Merde infernale, Will, ya think I _love_ Graeme?! No, man, I love _you_! Seulement toi, trésor, je le jure-” Gabriel meant to continue if it weren't for Will kissing the words and the very breath needed for them right out of his mind and body – a deep, uncompromising kiss that had Gabriel hurt with the sudden wash of emotion that hit him from the center of his soul, it seemed. “Will-”

“Gabe, Billy, sons, not that ah don't like y'all kissin' an' makin' up, but would ya mind until ah'm inside?”, the engineer interrupted, and the two stepped apart hastily, both blushing in slight shame at being caught having an intimate moment by their mutual friend and colleague. However, Grant seemed to take pity on them the next second, adding: “'s Nice seein' you two still can git along fine, though, 'specially since y'all gotta fight _extra_ hard t'day, what with BLU havin' a new pyro an' all.” It were those words that had Gabriel merely hug his lover instead of kissing him again the moment Grant had disappeared inside the building. Billy sensed his change of mood as well: looking up at the tall, imposing pyro, he grinned softly.

“Ya anxious ta meet ya colleague, huh, Gabe?”

“Merde, oui. Ya can't imagine how nervous I am, Will.”

“What, ya scared he's gonna toast ya ass, huh, Dante?”, Billy joked, squeezing Gabriel tightly against his form for a second to put extra emphasis on his following words: “'Cause I can tell ya now, ya shithead, he's gonna have a hell of a lotta problems tryin' ta toast all six feet of ya.” For a second, Gabriel looked at his lover in miscomprehension before understanding what he meant and laughing loudly, gladly letting go of his anxiety and tension in favor of enjoying the moment with the scout that he loved and thinking about besting his new colleague in battle.

 

At seven thirty, Sam stood ready alongside Archie and Theo, decked in his new gear, nervously adjusting the strap of his gas mask to make sure all his bandages were covered when he pulled the mask down, so they couldn't ignite. Archie caught the gesture and gave Sam an encouraging grin.

“Don't ya worry, ya'll get the hang'a this real soon, Sam, brotha!”

“Yeah, I know... but still... was Yaroslav right? Is their pyro over six feet and nearly as strong as him?”, he asked somewhat nervously, prompting Archie to shrug. However, it was a disembodied voice that answered.

“'E ees tall, oui, and 'e ees good with 'is weapons, but so are you, mon cher. Just remember, n'hésites pas – no 'esitation – and you'll do well.”

“Arsène, man, stop listenin' in before battle!”, Archie complained loudly, to which the spy probably meant to reply if it weren't for the loud sound of the horn and the subsequent rolling open of the automatic gate. “Awright!”, Archie yelled triumphantly, running outside; Sam followed after pulling the gas mask into place in front of his bandaged face and hoisting up his flamethrower that was filled to the brim with gas, the pilot light on it flickering softly as he jogged out over the rocky terrain. The sun already stood over the buildings, and Sam instantly knew he'd be drenched in sweat by the time the day was properly started.

“Mmrsmm! Hmms hmm thm dmm mmmt!”

“Yeah, Sam, let's kick some RED butt!”, the scout answered, obviously having deciphered what the pyro had shouted despite the words being muffled and deformed by the gas mask's oxygen filter, and the scout and pyro headed off to the edge of the area. Ahead of them, laughing loudly, was Yaroslav, mowing down their opponents with his minigun Sasha, aided by doctor Steinheim, and by the sparkle that was starting to issue from the medic's medigun and the almost manic grin the German had, Sam could tell the heavy weapons expert would take point very soon. However, movement behind the medic caught Sam's attention and he turned back to Archie. It wasn't Arsène, of that he was certain – it seemed the enemy team's spy was quick on his feet.

“Hmm thm dmm Thmmvmmsh, Hm thmmkh Hm shmm hm shphmh!”, he shouted, and Archie nodded, taking a sharp right while Sam doubled back to score his first kill on his new job.

“Zam, ve are okay!”, the medic shouted as he noticed the pyro approach, but Sam's flamethrower had already sparked to life and a blazing path of flame issued from its nozzle, passing harmlessly over the medic just like the Administrator had said it would but igniting the concealed figure behind him, revealing the RED spy that was swatting out the flames on his two-piece suit with an expression of utmost shock. The man was so startled by having been caught early in his assault that he was oblivious to Sam taking his fireaxe from behind his belt and swinging it down, ending it up planted squarely in the center of his chest, spattering blood liberally all over the blue fireproof suit. “...Zhat vos very... aztute of you, Zam, danke schön.”

“Hhssss nmmmmthhhhnmm, thhhmkthrrrrr!”, Sam said, casting a glance over at the body of the spy only to see it vanish from sight before his eyes, again just like the Administrator had explained to him the evening before. Shaking his head at how odd the sight was, Sam put his fireaxe away again and took up his flamethrower, running back towards the area Archie had run off to, finding the scout and the demoman perched in a hideaway where the engineer had joined them with a sentry and dispenser.

“You doin' alright in there, son?”, Dell asked, and Sam gave him a thumbs-up before noticing a glint of light fall onto the wall – the telltale laserscope dot of a sniper. “Yeah, that's 's close tuh meetin' Chris as yeh'll ever come. Still, he might know we're hidin' in here, but he sure as hell can't do nuthin' 'bout it...”, the engineer muttered, and Sam suddenly chuckled.

“Thmmmnt phhhh shhhm shhrrrrrr... Kmmh yhm thmm whmmm hmm hmms?” Dell blinked, and Tavish seemed to wonder about what he'd said as well, but Archie responded eagerly.

“Shit yeah! I saw tha fuckah sittin' up there, by the stairway... ain't moved an inch since ya got here, dude...”

“Yhm kmmh mmhtrhmm hmm, Mmrsmm... kmmh yhm thmmstmmh hmm?”

“I can... but man, if I get shot in the head again, ya gotta lot ta make up for, Sam, ya hear?!”, the scout said, picking up his steel baseball bat from against the wall before winking at the pyro. “Here goes!” Archie then dashed down the rocky stretch, pretending to push through to the next control point – that was effectively distracting the sniper who clearly bought into their plan without hesitation, and while he tried to pick off Archie, Sam got to the staircase quietly and crept up it to end up behind the sniper's back. Taking out his fireaxe, he took a deep breath in preparation before swinging down full force, burying the blade in the Australian's back until it protruded from his chest. A startled cry welled up from the Australian's throat but Sam sharply wedged the axe's blade to the right and the man's voice turned into a hollow gurgle as blood passed over his lips instead of air, after which Sam wedged his weapon loose to allow the body to disappear. He appeared on the outcropping to give the demoman and engineer the thumbs up, indicating they could move ahead, before checking his flamethrower and seeing that the reservoir was almost empty. '...Well, better dash back to Dell, I think I smelled gasoline on his dispenser...', the pyro thought as he ran down again, musing how easily his battles so far had gone.

 

“Dante, pick up the slack! Either help Grant fight off that Frenchie bastard or take point, private, but don't run circles out of boredom!”, John bellowed, prompting Gabriel to give the man a mock salute before running off in the opposite direction, his flaregun in one hand and his cruel-looking Axtinguisher in the other. Normally, it'd take someone two hands to be able to swing the axe, but he'd grown strong enough to wield it with a single hand – and since he was ambidextrous, he could fire his flaregun just as surely with his left hand as with his right. Or, he mused as Archie dashed past and his flare missed the scout by just a hair's breadth, that was the _idea_ , anyway.

“Hrrrrshhmmm, yuuuuh khhhhmmmt hhhthrrmmmmmn mhhhh phhrrrrrhvrrrrr!”, he bellowed – the scout's reply was a loud curse followed by three shots from his sawed-off Force-a-nature that had Gabriel stagger. 'I fuckin' _hate_ Archie an' his goddamn shotgun an' his infernal _speed_ -', the pyro mused before feeling a sharp pain in the back of his neck. “Phhhmmkkh!”, he yelled right before he sagged, knowing that the BLU sniper, Theodore, and his sniper rifle were responsible. However, no more than a minute later, he stood on the same spot as before, breathing heavily and tucking away his bloodstained Axtinguisher in favour of his equally cruel-looking modified flamethrower that he lovingly had named 'Backburner' since it seemed to work best when turned on unsuspecting BLU team members' backs. Billy, who had been running off to stop the advance of their foes but who had been helping him kill Theo, sighed and wiped the sweat from his brow before nudging his head at the corridor hewn out of the stone wall to their right.

“'Ey, Gabe, I'm gonna see if I can find Grant, 'kay?”

“Hhhkhhh... Hhhh, vhhhrrrrrrsssh thhhhrrr nuuuu phrrrrruuu?”, Gabriel asked in return, only for the scout to shrug.

“I dunno – saw tha dude when I ran off ta help John, though. Man, for a newbie, he's sure quick on tha uptake, roasted our solly like french toast! ...But I think he ran back past their line'a defense then... sorry, Gabe, guess ya ain't gonna see ya new pyro buddy taday...” Gabriel groaned but didn't reply, instead waiting for Billy to run off to their engineer before he headed through another carved-out hallway that he knew would lead him closer to the BLU side of the battlefield, deciding to go find a quiet spot to observe their movements so he could at least spend his time remotely useful for the team.

 

At the end of the day, when the horn sounded and the last few rockets and explosives had blown up with distant thuds, Sam had to admit that he hadn't been wrong in thinking the job was tough in a lot of ways. It hadn't just been mindless running and burning people at all: in fact, he'd frequently had to double back to Dell for some emergency spy-burning, or relieve Jane and Tavish's duties in slowly advancing the frontline by trying a new line of approach while the rest pressed their usual route. The pyro had been fortunate enough to avoid dying all day – though it had come close a couple of times, especially when he'd run into the RED soldier and had suddenly found himself dodging three rockets in rapid succession until the man had had to reload and expose himself to a full tank of Sam's flamethrower. After they'd captures all the strategic points of the battlefield, they'd found a minecart with a heavy payload – the bomb inside the minecart had been somewhat ironically shaped as an old missile warhead, but it'd done its job of blowing up the perimeter of the RED base, after which they could enter to swipe precious intelligence on the other team that they'd then carried over to their own base for deciphering. However, Sam had been savvy to the true nature of their battle all the while, of course, and so he'd seen the telltale signs of it all being fake: the way the wall had already had cracks in it where the explosives had been settled, the way the explosion had blown up a wall while it hadn't posed any real danger to any member of either team, and then there was the fact that the intelligence had been nonsense with random pictures of previous battles next to them. Still, it'd been rewarding enough, fake or not, not to mention Sam had learnt about everybody's role in the battles and the team dynamics a lot in between running around on the battlefield, and all in all it had proven to be a productive day for the team as well.

“So, uh, when's dinner?”, Sam asked, looking around to find eight faces looking back at him in clear expectation and wonder, prompting him to follow up: “...Uh, is there something wrong?”

“Well, uh, yew... yeh're s'posed tuh cook fer us, Sam, pardner.”, Dell said tentatively, and the demoman eagerly added to that announcement.

“Aye! Yeh're the fire expert, so use yer knowledge and cook fer us, laddeh!”, Tavish said as he motioned for the kitchen, resulting in a slap on the head by Siegfried, who looked less than pleased with Sam's confusion. The pyro was glad for the man's soft-spoken, disapproving words.

“Herr Degroot, our new friend did not yet know zhis was his duty, zo pleaze give him a bit of time to azjust to zhe idea... Herr Tennant-”

“I'm no 'herr' anyone, doctor Steinheim – call me Sam like you did out there.”, the pyro reacted, resigning himself to his fate and quickly ducking into his room to put on a long-sleeved dark blue shirt, and light blue kitchen gloves and a similarly-coloured apron with a single giant daisy on the front, causing Yaroslav and Jane to double over in laughter while Dell grinned, eyebrow raised. The medic looked taken aback for a moment before nodding.

“Zam... vould you pleaze cook zhe dinner for us?”

“...Well, I'll see what you've got and then I'll cook up a storm.”, the pyro admitted before opening the fridge. “Hmm hmm...” The fridge was surprisingly well-stocked, though most of the foods in there required some work to prepare properly. In the end, he took out three chickens, several batches of pre-cooked carrots, a mound of peeled potatoes – he guessed Jane and Yaroslav had peeled them, since they were slightly cubical in shape – and several pots, pans, jars of spices and a bit of butter. “Awlrighty then, let's see if I can make something of this!”

“...Ah'll help yeh out, pardner – ah did all the cookin' fer this bunch until yew came, it ain't fair that yeh gotta be thrown intuh it head-first on yer firs' day on the job...”, Dell said meekly, joining Sam in the kitchen, prompting a generous smile out of Sam.

“Okay then... mind taking care of the carrots and the potatoes? Then I can properly season our chicken.”

“Allrighty then!”, Dell said enthusiastically, starting to reheat the carrots slowly and cooking the potatoes, leaving Sam to prepare their meat: he was just figuring out how to peel off an aroma-seal off some 'curry masala' when he heard doctor Steinheim speak to Archie in the dining room.

“Zay, Archie... vould you happen to know more about our nevest team member? Normally I am zhe first to know all about zhem, since I have to do zhe medical examinations, but zhis time zhe Administrator-General told me zhat it vould not be necessary... mein knowledge of a team member haz never been 'unnecessary' before, and so... I am zlightly vorried.” Archie took a while to speak up, clearly having considered his reply, for which Sam was grateful. He knew that the doctor would know – that all of his new team members would know – the reason for his secretive background when he'd return from his second round of surgery in two months' time, but he'd prefer no one finding out before he left, if only to save himself some trouble beforehand. If they knew... there was no telling how they'd react, let alone what they could do to him, if they knew exactly who he was and what had happened. Fortunately, the scout's reply was voiced in a delicate tone that meant to convey to the medic that Sam had to speak about himself and that it wasn't anyone else's business to repeat something told in confidence – that alone told Sam that the scout was trustworthy.

“I dunno, doc, he told me he has his own doctor comin' to base for his check-up... But I do know the reason for those bandages... thirty gallons of burnin' gasoline and a heap-a skin grafts. Dude has a fuckin' catheter runnin' up into his bladder, too.”

“Zhat must be a terrible nuisance...”, the medic answered, and when Sam looked at him, the medic looked back with mild curiosity, which made Sam feel a little unpleasant. Archie noticed the look doctor Steinheim gave his new room mate as well – either that, or he felt uncomfortable as well – and he quickly steered the conversation away from Sam's medical condition.

“...and dude loves his fireaxe – nearly decapitated me this mornin' – and would like to meet RED's pyro to exchange axe murder stories and cuddle in the light of an inferno...”

“Zo he has zhe pyromania az well?”, Siegfried asked; before Archie had time to either confirm or deny it, Sam decided that he'd had enough and loudly interrupted.

“I most definitely am _not_ a pyromaniac! Doctor Steinheim, please don't give Archie the third degree about my medical background – my medical records are a bit erratic nowadays, so they'll probably get shared with you as soon as my medical situation's _stable_ , but I can tell you already I _don't_ have any medical condition like pyromania, even if the RED pyro does!! Now-”

“But ya even have the same pyro-gear purse-”, Archie protested, most likely feeling a little attacked by Sam's vehement reaction, but the pyro didn't relent.

“Archie, I swear to god, that purse is not 'where I stash my matches', it's where I keep my medicine regimen – and even if it _was_ where I hid my pyromania paraphernalia from you, then it'd still be none of your business and I'd still clobber you to death with the purse if you even dared say something like that again!”, Sam spoke loudly over the din of the kitchen – Dell looked up from minding the pots, but Sam waved his hand airily and he went back to stirring. Archie looked up again, pale-faced and shocked, causing the pyro to grin broadly, which in turn made the scout relax and grin as well.

“Naw, Sam, I wouldn't shit withcha, ya axe-crazy dickhead. But Dante – that's RED's pyro, in case ya didn't know yet – well, Dante's as fiyah-crazy as they come... an' he's pretty messed up in all tha otha fields too – he drinks more 'n Tavish, an' he bangs RED's scout as well as anythin' comin' his way that ain't unwilling. Billy keeps getting him ta say 'sorry' for steppin' out, though, an' he's jealous somethin' fierce if anyone tries to seduce Dante instead'a the otha way 'round. I'll betcha dey wouldn't mind a threesome though...”, he added with a ludicrous grin, and Sam shook his head softly.

“Somehow I'm not inclined to find out whether they'd do that.” The pyro meant to continue and add on that he wasn't interested in a relationship or even a one-night affair just yet when he was healing, only to have his attention drawn away by the engineer's soft curse. Looking into the kitchen, he saw Dell struggle with the large pots that contained the potatoes, the lid on it slipping from his grasp and boiled spuds raining down into the sink. “...Oh, hell, Dell, I said pour out the water, not pour out the potatoes!”, Sam said, disappearing back into the kitchen for a moment, forgetting about the scout and the medic for a second while rectifying the Texan's mistake – Dell looked at him grasping around in the sink with an apologetic smile and returned to the carrots, that fortunately didn't pose any problems. However, just when Sam grabbed his flamethrower to add a last 'finishing touch' to the chicken, he caught a tidbit of the conversation doctor Steinheim and Archie were having, causing him to mentally groan.

“...I zhink zhat our pyro might not be zhat much different from RED's pyro in his preferenzhes. He vos looking at you very intensely, Archie...” It was a small comfort to Sam that they thought him gay – because it meant they believed his story – but it was nothing compared to the discomfort he felt at lying, even if it was perpetuating a lie that ultimately made his life easier. In the end, the pyro merely shook his head and chose the most honest answer as he picked up his flamethrower.

“Tell me, doctor Steinheim...” It was spoken with a soft smile that turned to a mildly worrying grin as he hatched a plan to make the medic and the scout forget all about the subject while the pyro sparked on the pilot light on his flamethrower. From the looks of the men's faces and the speed at which colour drained away from them, he was very successful, which prompted him to speak on: “...how could I possibly think of something like a liaison with half my underside covered in blisters, sores and regrowing skin? ...No answer?”, he said sweetly as no response came – and immediately after, he nudged his head at Dell, who carried the chickens in on a large, long metal platter and set them down on the dinnertable which, due to the heavy use it saw and the careless character of the people using it, was made of metal as well. As soon as the engineer had cleared the scene, Sam raised his voice and called out a warning to his fellow team members: “EVERYONE CLEAR THE TABLE!!” With a final chuckle, Sam squeezed the handle of the flamethrower, engulfing the chickens for a second in a bright spurt of gasoline-fuelled flames – when the blaze ended as Sam released the trigger, the chickens were left sizzling, the table was radiating heat, and Siegfried Steinheim lay in a dead faint on the floor. “Chicken flambé with mashed potatoes and carrots!”, Sam announced to the group while putting away his flamethrower; meanwhile, Yaroslav helped the medic up again and helped the utterly stunned man to a seat, with Sam promptly taking up the seat opposite him and next to Archie.

“Dude, that was vicious!”, the scout said, looking a bit pale as well and eyeing the chicken with hunger and mild disgust – it smelled like gasoline slightly – and Sam nodded, feeling a little bad for dealing with the unwanted attention in such a showy, potentially-maniacal way. If he wanted to get the team to believe he _wasn't_ some kind of lunatic, acting like one wasn't the best way to go forward. In the end, he sighed and looked at his plate in slight shame.

“Yeah...” However, the scout didn't let him get away with any excuse, because he spoke up loudly and overpoweringly in agreement the next second.

“Are ya kiddin' me?! Ya got every right ta be amazed, that was the height'a awesome! Hey, Steinheim, betcha thought Sam was comin' ta fry ya ass!”

“Manners, Arch!”, the soldier shouted from across the table, and the medic didn't deign to reply, instead eating a chicken leg carefully while keeping his eyes pointedly away from the pyro. It was that avoidance, together with Yaroslav having to bite his lip in between agreeing with Archie or siding with his best friend doctor Steinheim, that got Sam to laugh along with Archie and scoop a healthy helping of food onto his own plate when the scout did so.

 

“'Ey, Sam, you comin' to watch my game?”, Archie suggested as Sam stretched after dinner and the dish-washing, which he'd done with Dell's expert help. Shrugging to show he didn't yet know, the pyro went to the fridge from the couch. “Oh, bring me that six-pack-a-Bonk, will ya?”, Archie called after him, prompting Sam to chuckle before answering.

“Mmkay...” Sam grasped around in the refrigerator, taking another soda for himself and the six-pack for his new friend, dropping it off next to him and briefly taking a seat next to the scout, deciding that looking at his game wouldn't hurt. “Oh, Army of Death 4 Ultimate, hm?” The game wasn't unfamiliar to Sam, who hadn't owned a copy but who had had several friends and a lover or two who had and who had frequently offered to give an initiation. The scout, like all of them, seemed equally hyped up about the game, if his next boast was anything to go by.

“The extra violent edition...”, Archie said with clear pride, opening a can of energizer and downing it in one, causing doctor Steinheim to groan from the other end of the room – Sam wondered why, since the scout didn't seem to misbehave in any way or hadn't been doing anything to hinder the medic in his book-reading. “It has extra ludicrous gibs and flames-a-war...”, Archie continued undeterred, and Sam nodded.

“Hm, I know it, my-” Suddenly, the pyro could feel a sharp pain in his groin, like a burning-hot needle stabbing right through his barely-healed skin to his bladder – it was a sure sign that his catheter had slipped, and already he could feel the healing tissue of his urethra burn. His expression of pain caught Archie's eye, causing the scout to look at his friend in confusion.

“Hey, what'sa mattah, Sam?” Sam groaned, realizing that he needed to rectify the situation as quickly as possible, and rose while he answered.

“Uh... it's nothing... just, uhm, excuse me for a minute...” Slowly, he headed out of the room – he _had_ to move deliberately, because the loosened tube could leak urine all over the bandages, causing infections that he desperately had to avoid while on a careful mixture of probiotics and panacea – if his healing skin got infected, it could stop growing or even start dying, and then... Holding back another groan, Sam quickly picked up a new catheter plus some supplies and set off down the hallway at the end of the compound, fishing, for the first time, into his pocket for the key the Administrator-General had given him the previous evening. '...Never thought I'd have to use this so soon...', he mused as he unlocked the door and took a left turn into the separate medbay. 'I hate this, I hate this...', Sam kept droning on as he half-lay on the medbay examination table and numbed the still-healing skin of his privates, after which he disinfected his hands and took the new catheter out of its packaging. Then, with a deep breath, the pyro pushed the thin but unyielding tube back up to the right place before succumbing to the pain it brought and shouting. “KYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHHH!” It took a second for the pain to die down enough for Sam to do anything but wheeze and try his hardest not to cry, but as soon as he became aware of anything apart from the burning sensation in his nethers, he heard the sound of distant voices in the hallway and hastily fastened the catheter bag to his leg before doing up his clothes equally quickly. “...Ahh...”, he ground out, trying to walk quickly but managing only to move stiffly and painedly. But when he locked the door of the separate area again, he found that he'd still moved quickly enough to beat everyone but Archie and Dell in speed, for when he turned back around, both the scout and the engineer were standing at the end of the hallway. Both had their backs turned to him, but turned back around when his shoes squeaked on the concrete soil. As always, Archie was first to speak up.

“Sam, dude... you okay?!”, he asked, and Sam winced.

“N-not really... my, uh, my catheter slipped and I had to insert a new one...”

“Dude, you crazy?! Why don't ya let doc Steinheim do that for ya?!”, the scout asked, and Sam shook his head. It was a valid question: why would anyone do any kind of medical procedure by themselves if there was a doctor on site? The engineer, however, seemed to guess his unease and spoke up soothingly.

“Arch, son, it ain't like reinsertin' a catheter's not somethin' a man can handle 'imself. Sam probably just didn't want t'bother doctor Steinheim so late in the evenin'.” The scout looked at the pyro for a second in undeniable distrust, but then Sam groaned and spoke up again.

“Believe me, the _last_ thing I'd want is to get any kind of infection rampaging through my body when I'm immunosuppressed – my own doctor taught me how to do the basic procedures, Archie, and one of them is how to reinsert a catheter. If it wasn't okay for me to do that myself, he never would've given me the supplies, now, would he?” Archie nodded slowly, relaxing a second after his initial reaction, until finally he sighed and stretched to get rid of the residual tension in his limbs.

“Awright, Sammy, brotha – but tha first sign ya get of an infection-”

“Oh, believe me, I'll probably be put in that test tube I mentioned earlier if I do get an infection.”, the pyro admitted with a shy smile. Archie chuckled and nodded.

“Yeah, and none of us want that, ya hear? ...Okay, if ya doin' good, then I'm gonna return to my game, I was winnin' until _you_ decided ta wake the entire buildin' up-”

“Archie, son...”, Dell said, motioning for him to shut up and just walk off, which the scout did with another mock salute, though he did so behind the engineer's back. As soon as Archie was gone from the hallway, Sam made to walk off as well only to be held back firmly by Dell. When he looked back at the Texan, he could see a look of slightly worried apprehension in the man's eyes, a sentiment that was mirrored in the man's words. “Sam, now I ain't pretend t'be a man of many things, but ah do notice y'ain't tellin' us everything. Now, yeh say you ain't no pyromaniac like Gabriel from RED, an' that's enough for me fer now, but are yeh gonna keep hidin'? 'Cause there ain't no need fer it.” Sam bit his lip, torn between cursing the universe to make her team mates so perceptive and commending the man for his worry and excellent judgement. In the end, however, he heaved a weary sigh and nodded his head.

“Dell, I don't plan on hiding forever, just... it's going to be hard as it is and I want to... I don't know, I suppose I want to enjoy the tranquility while I can. I promise that what I'm holding back isn't going to impact how I perform my job, okay?” When the engineer nodded, Sam gently pried his hand off his arm, smiling softly which had an off effect due to the extent of his burns and the bandages shrouding his face, but Dell at least seemed to understand the feeling he was trying to convey and he nodded, allowing Sam to speak on: “...You're a great man, Dell, and I appreciate that you're worried about the team-”

“Weren't worried 'bout the team, son. We kin manage whatever comes our way, been here longer 'n you were _alive_ , ah reckon... naw, ah was worried 'bout _yew_. The team ain't got a new pyro t'have him crack under the pressure. And I don't mean just the _job_ pressure. Grant – that's RED's engie – he talks tuh me sometimes, 'bout Gabriel, an'... son, ah'm just sayin'...”, the engineer finished, looking him in the eye slightly pleadingly, “...if'n yeh got problems, we can't solve 'em, but we can talk about 'em an' help yeh deal with yer problems, awrigh'?”

“...Allright, Dell. Thanks for the offer. Maybe one day, I'll take you up on it, okay?”, Sam said, feeling torn between genuine affection for the engineer that was acting fatherly towards him and slight grief at having to perpetuate a lie; and as the pyro walked back to his room bandy-legged, the burning sensation in his urethra was banned temporarily by the even greater burning of shame at the way he preferred the lie over the truth.

 


	4. Roll out of bed and down on your knees

“Mmhmmm...” The next morning, Sam woke up from the sunlight shining right on his face through the small window the room had, causing the pyro to groan softly and get out of bed. In the other bed, Archie was still snoring like there was no tomorrow, giving Sam the time and opportunity to check himself in the mirror: undressing slowly in front of the mirror, he checked his nightgown first. 'Everything looks okay... still some pus stains on here, but that'll pass – yesterday I was practically soaked, but today everything looks okay... man, that Grow-a-gen works fast as hell... Maybe I can take a shower again in a week or two...' He then checked the catheter bag before attending to his bandages, figuring that his intervention the other evening warranted a follow-up, and groaned when it was filled with thick red urine. Obviously he'd managed to upset his system somehow. 'If the next bag's still got blood in it, I need to call doc Harvey – no way I can have doctor Steinheim-'

“Uh, dude, there's blood in ya piss-bag...”, came Archie's drowsy voice, and Sam turned to find his new friend step out of bed, shaking his head in disgust. He raised an eyebrow as he replied.

“Uh, that's kind of normal, Archie, when you consider I shoved a tube into my urethra up until my bladder. Things are not meant to go up there. It'll clear.” Sam noticed the look of surprise on his new friend's face as he methodically changed the bag, closing off the other and tossing it into a small yellow hazmat box he then clicked close and sealed. However, the scout seemed to find his voice again by the time he reached for his bandaging supplies.

“Still, normal or not, that's just plain disturbin', Sam, brotha... you, uh, sure ya don't want doc Steinheim to have a look?”

“Positive.”, Sam reacted with a firm nod before softening the statement when noticing how upset Archie looked, which in turn caused him to realize that the scout was only being worried. “...Besides, I could always call doctor Harvey over for an emergency intervention.”

“Well, he's ya doctor, so I guess it makes sense...”, the scout said, hastily putting on a shirt and some track pants, speaking on as he did so: “Ya know, doc Steinheim said yestahday he didn't do ya medical check-ups... how come?” Sam sighed and slowly unwound the bandages on his left arm first, stretching and unstretching his fingers to feel how well the skin was repairing and wincing as the crusts started to fall apart when he flexed his joints.

“I already had my own doctor, and seeing as my situation's a bit complicated at the moment, doctor Harvey told the Administrator-General that he would oversee my case personally for the first two months, until after I return when the cosmetic surgery's over.” He'd reached the end of his arm's bandages, arriving at his chest, which prompted him to look at Archie shyly. “...Could you, uh...”

“Meet ya in the breakfast room...”, Archie said with a shrug, showing he didn't mind as well as that he wouldn't ask any further about the matter – it made Sam feel marginally better, knowing that at least he wouldn't have to lie any more to this man that was rapidly becoming a friend, and he grinned.

“Save a pancake for a hungry pyro...” When Archie closed the door behind him, Sam hurried to finish taking off the bandages, checking his skin to see the situation had improved again. 'Man, the Grow-a-gen really does the trick! ...Well, all the better, I really would like a shower... Okay... Like fire it spread and like flames it grew...'

 

“Gabe, man, don't ya think we oughta get up?” Normally, the sound of Billy's voice would wake Gabriel up near-instantly, but that morning seemed to be the exception confirming the rule: all Gabriel felt the energy to do was groan inarticulately into his pillow. He felt _comfortable_ laying on his back, feet over the edge of the bed, arms stretched out on either side of him like a drowned man. 'Drownin' in a sea of fluff...', he thought with his eyes closed, the mental images that gave him of being cushioned in cotton candy so enticing that he was more than willing to obey sleep rather than his lover. However, the next second, he nearly jumped off the bed, dreams all but forgotten, when Billy decided to tickle the exposed soles of his feet.

“ _Meeeeeeerde_ , et qu'est-ce que tu penses, Will, the fuck was _that_ necessary for?!”, the tall blonde pyro shouted, glaring at his lover who tried his hardest not to laugh and ultimately lost the struggle to hold his loud chuckles in.

“Ohoh, Gabe, y-ya should'a seen ya face, ma-hahaha-an!”, the scout said, quickly ducking under Gabriel's swing and then dashing off into the hallway, towels and a change of clothes tucked firmly underneath his arms, getting Gabriel to groan and look at the bed he'd leapt out of.

“Merde, I was comfy in there...”, he muttered while gathering supplies of his own – a towel, a washcloth, a change of underwear, and some shaving cream and a razor for dealing with his out-of-control stubble. He didn't know why he bothered sometimes, since half of the day his face was hidden by a gas mask, but the thought of leaving his stubble unminded and the small patch of dense, almost bristly hairs on his chin expanding into a full, thick beard rubbed him the wrong way. 'Never was vain, but wantin' to look good, c'est pas d'faux-pas..;', he mused as he walked into the bathroom. Only one of the other showers was going – probably Billy, Gabriel thought as he discarded his dirty laundry in a pile at his feet, looking at his toes and wiggling them, and softly grinning at the sight of his lily-white feet. 'Merde, j'me sens comme j'étais liberé d'un marais... J'pense qu'une douche fraîche me va rénerver...' _“...haah_ yeah...”, he followed up the thought with an actual sigh as he stepped underneath one of the showers and switched it on, turning the water from 'hot enough to cause first degree burns' to 'body temperature' for a change. The other person that was showering yelped suddenly; Gabriel could only guess that they'd been overusing the hot water supply and snickered, turning back to his own personal hygiene. Two minutes later saw his hair lathered up in shampoo and his cheeks in shaving cream, and he hummed a tune as he shaved off the excess stubble. He never needed a mirror to shave – or rather, he never _used_ a mirror to shave and miraculously came out of the shower with his goatee still intact, he mused as he tossed the razor back onto his towels on the other side of the room. As soon as he started liberally applying his favourite pH-neutral unscented bodywash, he started loudly singing.

“Mais ouuuu, mais ouuuuu, est tuuuuu alleeeeee... je te trouuuuuve pluuuuuus ma chèèèère... pourquoiiiii, pourquoiiiiii est tu alleeeeeeeee, te caaaaache pluuuuus ma chèèère...”

“Danti haff good mood today, da?”, came a heavy voice from right outside his shower cubicle, causing the pyro to halt instantly and peek around the corner to see his team's heavy weapons expert, Radovan, smiling his usual imperturbable smile. He didn't usually talk much to Radovan, since the man was too close to their medic, doctor Rudolf Hartmann, the man that meted out Gabriel's anti-anxiety meds and kept a medical watch on his alcohol abuse – it had led to Gabriel affectionately nicknaming the medic 'doctor Hardass'. However, if Radovan was bothered by it, he didn't show it one bit.

“...Well, it's a nice day, the sun's shinin', and j'ai pas le moindre désir de brûler quelque chose. Hell yeah, I have a good mood today, Rado'.”

“You think you meet leetle BLU pyro today, Danti?”, Radovan asked, leisurely toweling his large and bulky form dry – that made Gabriel ponder whether that day would be the day, and he shrugged.

“P't-être. ...Heh, you're right 'bout one thing, Radovan, my BLU colleague is fuckin' _minute_. Built like a damn chick.”

“Maybe leetle BLU pyro is cheek?”, the Russian tried, and Gabriel snorted, answering even as he closed his eyes and rinsed the shampoo out of his hair.

“C'mon, man, when's a _woman_ ever joined us fuckin' _espèces de fous_? Let's face it, there ain't no girl in the world that'd like bein' stuck on some dusty military base, let alone bunk with a scrawny jerkoff like Archie, _let alone_ wear the goddamn suit and mask all hours of the day. Chicks don't want nothing but primp 'emselves. ...Pfeh, BLU pyro, a chick...” When he opened his eyes again, Radovan was gone and the showers were deserted, and the pyro chuckled again, shaking his head and quickly walking over to his towels, humming another tune as he went and dismissing the laughable thought that his colleague was a woman.

 

Sam had been prepared to see a lot on the job, but seeing Arsène the spy blow a kiss at Archie just as he rounded the corner was definitely  _not_ something he'd thought he was going to see. Nevertheless, his vision was not blurred and the hand-motion was impossible to mistake for anything else, not to mention the spy winked at him in passing as well. But after a second of utter surprise, he grinned and stepped towards Archie, who seemed to only notice him when he spoke.

“You and the spy, huh?”, he said, unable to keep himself from sounding mildly interested, which provoked a chuckle and a loud response from Archie.

“Arsène'd love ta hear ya think that...” However, when Sam gave him an incredulous look, the scout followed it up with a soft addition: “...Only on occasion, though.”

“So all the pin-ups-”, Sam started, but Archie shook his head, laughing softly before rolling his eyes.

“I swing both ways, dude. I mean, Arsène ain't the first guy ta-”

“Do not finish that sentence...”, Sam said, feeling slightly amused. She hadn't figured that Archie, the same guy that'd basically drooled over the tv set the previous evening when one of his favourite actresses was on, would be interested in men. Then again, she reminded herself, when seventeen men lived in close quarters, there was a big chance that some of them got together, regardless whether it was out of necessity or because they genuinely _wanted_ another man, and she grinned. “Good pick with Arsène, though... I have to admit he is kinda hot in his own way...”

“N-no way, you seriously think he's hot?!”, Archie asked, sounding incredulous – and not the least bit possessive, which told Sam that her new friend wasn't interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with the spy.

“Let's just say he's got plenty of charm, even if he's a little on the old side...”, Sam said, rolling his eyes as Archie grinned. “But he is most certainly hot...”

“You kiddin' me?! He's a fuckin' god...”, Archie admitted, and now Sam blushed. It figured the scout would be overt. However, when they arrived at the door to the dining room, Archie turned to the pyro again with a serious look. “...Remember, brotha, mum's tha word... 'kay? Some guys, like doc Steinheim and Jane, don't have your kind'a understanding...” That also made sense to Sam: the soldier looked like he was a typical man that wanted nothing to do with ' _those guys_ ', and the medic probably would psychanalyze any kind of same-sex relationship into a mental illness. All in all, he nodded his head at the scout reassuringly, his voice soft and calm.

“Your secret's safe with me...” The scout turned to the door, ready to open it, but Sam felt like he had to add just one more thing. The scout seemed to have developed a trust with him easily, and that merited some trust back. Not to mention they'd have to share a room even after his surgery, so the other man deserved to know. “...Hey, Archie?”

“Yeah?”

“About yesterday... I'll tell you why the medic can't do my exams... j-just not today, okay?” That seemed to mollify the scout, and he nodded.

“'Kay... I understand...”, he said before opening the door for the both of them.

 

Sam paused for a quick breather three hours later, when the battles were already in full swing. The fights were just as intense as the day before, but their missions were a little different – where they'd had to deliver a payload to the edges of the RED base the previous day and RED had tried to stop them, they were now apparently racing the other team trying to deliver a payload, and after that they'd had to once again gather intel from the RED base, but this time they'd had to protect their  _own_ documents as well. Right now, they were back at capturing as many control points as they could, but they were using a different route and so the control points were different from the ones they'd been fighting over the previous day. All in all, it was pleasant to see the variation, Sam mused – 'this job isn't going to get boring any day soon...' Then, however, when Archie joined him, Sam turned back to the matter at hand: slipping the gas mask back over his bandaged face, he nudged his head at one of the rocky alleyways leading away from the small enclosure they were in.

“Mmrshmm, gmmt tmm Dmmh mn hmmsk hmm phmm mh dmmsphmmshrrrr hmrr...”, Sam murmured, and the scout dashed off after giving Sam one of his generous and slightly cruel grins, leaving Sam to defend the control point by himself until the scout returned or one of the others joined. In the background, the pyro faintly heard the droning rattle of Yaroslav's minigun and the clatter of bullets striking the steel walls of the one of the other control points. It wasn't until he heard another roaring that he noticed he wasn't alone – the RED pyro was storming straight at him. It was the first time Sam had seen him, and instantly he noticed that the stories about the man were true. He was tall, and thick-set, and he came running at him with a very vicious-looking flamethrower.

“Mmmtmh mmh vhmm!”, the man roared through his own gas mask as a spurt of flame came from the modified nozzle of his flamethrower – Sam cursed, knowing his fireproof suit wouldn't protect him from continuous exposure, and he switched to his shotgun, pumping three shells into the enemy pyro before he blacked out. “Smmmrmh, dmmmd...”, the other pyro murmured – Sam felt dizzy, his mind going blank until he opened his eyes with a start to find himself back in the medical bay of their makeshift 'base'.

“Velkome back to zhe living, Zam!”, the medic said, chuckling as the pyro checked his suit and weapons for damage before pulling the mask off to speak with an air of fear.

“Doctor Steinheim, did you-” The medic nodded and answered the question soothingly.

“I haff checked your burns, and zhey are alright – vhen you are brought here from zhe battlefield, you are restored to full health, your equipment good as new and your veapons refilled. ...Don't bozher going back out zhere, though, zhe horn will zound in another zhirty seconds. RED vill vin zhis round.”

“Oh man... they were just _waiting_ for us to slip up, huh?”, Sam muttered, and doctor Steinheim nodded.

“Don't vorry, Zam, zhey vere vinning anyway.” The medic then leaned forward a little, speaking more softly. “Vos it zhe pyro zat got you? Zere were scorchmarks on zhe back of your suit...”

“...It was... but the guy said sorry. Heh, well, not that it's a _regular_ line of work, but I guess we're all just men doing our jobs, huh?”, Sam said with a shy grin, and the medic clapped the pyro on the back, smiling amiably.

“Zam, zhat is zhe best vay I've heard our zituation described! Yes, we are all just vorking men... RED and BLU alike. Zhis weekend, you'll see we even go to zhe city togezher for zhe drinks in zhe evenink!” Sam smiled broadly at the mention of that, but then sighed as he remembered he was expecting a visit from his own physician.

“Aw... My doctor's coming over to the base for my weekly checkup this weekend... don't think I can have that much fun with you...” The medic walked over to sit down next to him when the horn sounded from outside, declaring a break from fighting for both teams, patting Sam on the shoulder consolingly – but then, he smiled and shook his head ever so slightly.

“Surely your doctor vill not examine you in zhe evening! And even if he vould, you could ask him to be quick. Tell him you are missing out on zhe first free evening vizh your teammates, and he vill surely underztand...” The medic then looked at Sam, who nodded.

“Guess I could ask, yeah... The Grow-a-gen he prescribed does what it's supposed to do anyway, so maybe I can shower next week... But only God knows how long he'll need for my psych review-”

“You haveta get a psych review?”, came the offhand comment from Archie who walked up to the pyro and looked him in the eye. “What'd you do ta get stuck with a shrink pokin' around in ya head?!”

“I don't want to tell that... please...”, Sam said, but his new friend shook his head.

“Look, dude, I'm not sayin' ya're crazy, I just wanna know why ya have a psych pickin' ya brain...”

“Okay... but don't tell this to anyone, I know where you sleep, you hear? ...You know how I got the bandages, right?”, Sam said, motioning for Archie to join him – when the medic didn't move, Sam rolled his eyes before continuing. “My parents owned a gas station back home in England. I'd already moved out, to an apartment across the city, but in the weekends I still went back home to help with their small station shop – especially on Saturdays, when my parents went dancing with their social group...”

“Why still close to ya parents?”, Archie asked, his voice soft to show he didn't want to interrupt the pyro, and Sam sighed.

“Because of my youngest brother. Michael wasn't like me at all, he was quiet and shy and _smart_ , only not in the way people are usually noticed. He sucked at maths but he had a passion for biology and sociology. And he... he'd started having odd nightmares and really _dark_ thoughts, when we'd had to move. He was about twelve back then, which is a really difficult age, and children can be cruel to one another. He didn't feel safe at school, where he was mercilessly picked on for being smart, and he didn't feel safe at home, because my mum... Anyway... One Saturday, my parents left just like usual, at six thirty, after dinner, and called to ask me to take over from Michael at around eight. So I tended to my own dinner – and then, only about ten minutes after they'd called, I heard sirens, I looked out of the window, and... I knew that something'd gone wrong... So I drove over there like a lunatic, only to hear people say Michael was still inside the burning building. I ran in, got doused in burning petrol, but I didn't find him...” The pyro laughed then, a mirthless laugh that sounded as painful as it felt, and sighed. “It was only the house that went up in flames, not the pumps, the convenience store or the attached maintenance garage. The fire department found evidence that the fire was lit. My brother was dead, I was heavily burned and inside of the building... My profession made me the first and last suspect. I was charged with arson and involuntary manslaughter. By my own parents.”

“Nein...”, the medic whispered, and Archie looked like he'd been hit upside the head by his own baseball bat. However, he shook off his stupor long enough to look at Sam and speak words of encouragement.

“Man, that's... that's fuckin' _harsh_ , brotha...”

“Oh, believe me, that's only the beginning of it. There was no proof that I was the one that lit the fire, particularly because several bystanders testified that I'd arrived after the blast and that I'd run in without a second thought to save my brother. But my parents... they knew Michael had to have been... I mean, my brother was suicidal, and they turned a blind eye to it for years. My parents just couldn't cope with the fact that my brother had killed himself like that – they didn't want to believe how sick of it all he was – and they blamed me even when I won the court case. They wanted to have me committed, and when Damien, my oldest brother that acted as my proxy as I was being kept in a chemically induced coma in hospital, told them there would be no legal grounds to, they disowned me, filed a lawsuit for damages against me which they lost, and they changed their last names, moving out of the country.”

“Outta tha country?! Dude, that's so harsh it ain't even remotely understandable...”, Archie said before pulling his friend against him in a brief hug. The gesture surprised Sam, but it wasn't unwelcome at all and the pyro gladly indulged, especially when Archie spoke on. “Sam, brotha, ya got ya a whole new fam'ly right here! Don'tcha worry about what happened before... and just give that shrink a piece-a-yo-mind if he tells ya you're a psycho case, awright? ...Outta tha country... sick disturbed fucks, their own kid...”, the scout muttered as the horn sounded and the three picked up their weapons from their places again, ready to engage in another round of battles.

 

“Dante!!” Gabriel returned to his team's respawn room out of breath feeling a little shocked by what he'd overheard. He hadn't meant to listen in to the conversation on the BLU side, but as soon as he'd caught on who was the one talking, he hadn't been able to stop himself.

His first meeting with his new colleague had been short – too short, if he was honest to himself. The BLU pyro had been just as minute as he'd thought – or, at least, minute when compared to him, something that was equally true for half of the others on both his own team and BLU... but with what he'd heard now, his new colleague was very different from him. Not a sinner like he was, and like Lander had been, but a... 'well, not a saint either-', he mused until his thoughts were rudely interrupted by another bark from John.

“DANTE!!!” He turned to the soldier, his back straight as a board and his eyes very nearly literally burning holes in the man's ridiculous cap.

“ _What the fuck d'ya want, man?!_ ” Then, when the entire rest of the team looked shocked, he added a little more amenably: “I heard ya the first time, John – ya want me stickin' close to Grant and keepin' Arsène the French greaseball away. No need to have a fuckin' heart attack...”

“Well, pay attention next time, private, and you won't get yelled at!”, the soldier said, sounding like Gabriel had invented a new profanity insulting his dead mother – or that, at least, was the explanation the pyro mentally conjured up for the tension in the man's step as he ran out of the respawn room. He turned to Grant, who gave him a soft nod to show he understood what Gabriel had wanted to wordlessly convey before picking up his toolbox with two hands and running off with it. Gabriel gladly followed, knowing his job would be easy the first few minutes because they got to exit their respawn room a full minute before the BLU team, and so the engineer didn't have to worry about any attacks on his machinery just yet.

“...So, son, yeh mind tellin' me what's got yeh distracted? Ah'm bettin' it's the same reason yeh weren't in th'respawn room to begin with, too, ain't that right?”, Grant asked as soon as the two of them were comfortably situated right in a bend in the road, out of range for rocket attacks from Jane or sniper shots from Theo – Gabriel sighed and pulled his gas mask off, a process that ruffled his already unruly hair.

“I... went to look for their pyro, ended up near their respawn room and... dude was just tellin' their medic and Arch' about his parents. A-and... and about his brother an' how he offed 'imself...”

“How-”, Grant asked, but then he shut up when he noticed the look that Gabriel gave his hands. Even though he was wearing his usual thick fireproof gloves, lined on the inside with fire-retardant materials just like the rest of his suit was, he could still see the state of his hands in his mind's eye: covered in burn scars, the backs of them looking like a battlefield and the palms feeling like they were covered in wax. The pyro flexed his fingers a few times before sighing and speaking.

“...He... apparently lit himself on fire, 'cause he was suicidal. An' their pyro... he apparently got burnt badly runnin' in after his li'l brother... Et tout ça me donne de l'envie de... de brûles mes peines de nouveau... Grant, je t'en prie...”, Gabriel said, soft as a whisper as he looked his teammate in the eye somewhat desperately – the engineer nodded solemnly.

“Do y'want me keepin' an eye on yeh, son, or would yeh like us t'start our li'l heart-tuh-hearts 'gain?”

“I don't think we gotta have the talks again, but... keepin' an eye on me... a-an' maybe do my end-of-day refills for me again? I mean, _merde_ , I got to ask now, when I'm still in fuckin' control-”

“Amen tuh tha', son. Awright, I'm'a keep an eye on yeh, Dante, an' yeh kin give yer flamethrower t'me for safe-keepin'.”, the engineer said, to which Gabriel replied with a firm nod before slipping his gas mask on again and sending a spurt of fire to the end of the hallway that had been quiet – instantly and with a pained scream, Arsène materialized, trying to run away only for Gabriel to shoot a flare into his back and throughout his burning body, causing the corpse of the spy to disintegrate even when he was falling.

“Phhhhkhhhhnn shphmmm... Khrrrrrnthh, thnnnnmkshh, mnnn mmmhhh...”, the pyro muttered through his oxygen filter, causing Grant to chuckle and shake his head, leaning back against his dispenser for a second while selecting the best wrench to adjust his machinery with.

 

The second day of fighting passed by swiftly for Sam, and the third day even more so. More battle variations, more fights – a couple of which with the RED pyro, that seemed to delight in fighting him for some odd reason – and more cooking for the hungry troops at the end of the day. Fortunately, Dell was a great help in teaching Sam a few tricks of the trade, like how to effectively use the air blast on his flamethrower to put out anyone that came running by with their clothing on fire, or how to bounce back grenades and rockets shot by the enemy. That last feat had been fun, especially when John, the RED soldier, had foolishly led a charge and Sam's bouncing back his rocket dealt with  _three_ of the enemy team, among which Pierre, their spy. It was exhausting – long days of fighting made only longer by having to cook and clean up after a band of nine mercenaries – but great fun, so it was no surprise that Sam found himself sitting in the sofa at the end of the third day, at nine,  leaning slightly against Dell who had fallen asleep again while watching his favourite show on television, complete with the occasional snore issuing from him. Softly, Sam dislodged himself without waking up the napping engineer, walking over to the fridge and taking out a can of Archie's stash of Bonk, drinking a sip and wincing.

“Gods, I've had a lot of energy drinks in my life, but this has got to be the most sugary shitty drink I ever had the displeasure of tasting! ...But it'd be a waste not to drink it down now... hm, here goes...”, he said, closing his eyes and downing the can in a single gulp, shivering in disgust before throwing the empty can away. “...Say, where is Archie, anyway?”, he asked Theo, the sniper that still sat at the dinnertable, engrossed in his 'Hunting Monthly' magazine.

“He got a phonecall on his mobile... buggah if I know where that little wankah went...”, Theo said, looking up from his reading, and Sam nodded.

“Ah, well... I'm tired, so I'm going to sleep. Mind telling him to keep it down when he comes to the room?” The sniper shrugged noncommittally, and Sam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, _thanks_ , Theo.”

“I'll tell 'im, Sam, mate.” The sniper seemed to have sensed the pyro's annoyance, if his slightly reluctant tone of voice was any indication, and now Sam gave him a much warmer nod before walking outside, heading to the room he shared with Archie only to find the door slightly ajar, light coming from inside along with an annoyed voice.

“Yeah, but Mom, ya know I- Yeah, well, he's a... Mom, stop ranting! Put- Just put Steve on the phone, will ya?! No, I just told ya, I can't!” There was a pause in the conversation, after which Archie sighed and spoke in a much softer tone: “Shit, Steve, who gave her a dose-a-sugar? I know. I know, dickhead! I knew what I signed up for, an' so did Mom. I thought she was glad ta see me outta juvie?” Now Sam had to press his hand to his mouth to hold back the surprised gasp that threatened to escape him. Not only had the scout been in jail, but he spoke awfully _casually_ about it. Meanwhile, Archie continued his conversation. “...Steve, ya know I can't. Now ya just shittin' with me, right? ...Aw jeez, not that crap again! I told you, I ain't seein' someone right now. There's no chicks here to nail, and the guys are just gross. 'Cept for the spy, but he's grade A asshole. I'm grossin' you out? Ha, funny, 'cause I remembah you doin' that to me when ya were still datin' Sylvia! ...Yeah yeah, you, a broom handle and a lack-a K-Y. Anyone else over at the ol' crib? ...No, don't put Mom back on, she- Aw hell...” Sam expected more annoyance, but instead the scout's voice sounded almost _meek_ the second time he greeted his mother. “Yeah, heya Mom. I know. Well, yeah... I told him not to tell you that, Mom! No, I'm not gonna bring him over for my next vacation! Yeah, yeah, love ya too, bye...” Silence ensued before Archie heaved a sigh, which Sam interpreted as his cue to drop in.

“Phone call from the home front?”, he asked, and Archie looked up in surprise, after which he groaned and nodded.

“My mom. One-a my brothas made me an uncle for the seventeenth time or some shit like that. I told her a million times before, if I can't be there for the first one, I sure as hell can't make it for the seventeenth one.”

“Seventeen? Holy hell, how many brother have you got?!”, Sam said, causing the scout to laugh heartily, his earlier irritation apparently vanishing into thin air.

“Hah, Sam, that's a good one! Nah, I got six brothas... I'm the runt'a tha family... Oldest of 'em's like, thirty, and then they're evenly spaced about a year until the sixth, my brotha Steve – we're four years apart. I was whatcha'd call 'tha accident kid'.”

“Big house, big family.”, Sam said with a smile. “Can't have been easy, exactly.”

“Yeah... mom coddles me like I'm a baby, but it was... okay, I guess. Oh, an' then there's the fact my dad's abandoned the fort, like, fifteen years ago.”

“Left for cigarettes and never returned?”, Sam asked, the cliché being the first that came to mind, but Archie shook his head.

“Nah, my mom an' he talked to my brothas, said 'sometimes people fall outta love just as easily as they fall in love'. I was too young to understand, but my brothas... well, let's just say my dad went outta our lives completely. My mom's been doin' whatevah since then. She's seein' Pierre nowadays.”

“The RED spy?”, Sam asked, surprised. “So you're trying to kill your future stepfather on a daily basis? That's... Freudian-”

“Well, yeah, but he's tha guy that got me my job with BLU so he ain't mind, and, well... I pretend I don't like him goin' out with my mom, but he's actually an okay guy for her. He ain't abusive, he makes sure he does right by her, an' he's kind to me and the rest-a-da pack.” The scout then sighed, turning to look out the window over the moonlit battling grounds. “Pierre's tha one that got me outta juvie, with the job he gave me here. He's alright.”

“What did you do to go to juvenile detention?”, Sam asked, and the scout shrugged.

“...Promise ya won't tell anyone else? Ain't exactly my proudest moment...”

“Your secret's safe with me, what else are friends for?”, Sam said with a wink, which caused the scout to relax again and motion for the pyro to sit down next to him on the edge of his bed.

“Heh, yeah, guess I can tell a friend like you. ...So I was part'a dis baseball team, an' we weren't the best, but we were okay. I'm a mean sluggah, an' we had this pitchah that could drive a ball so hard it smashed a wooden bat! The others were kinda mediocre, but we were a team – ya'd nevah hear me say that they were bad even if they sucked balls. ...Anyway, one day, some punk kid comes up to our second-baseman Twigs, starts yappin' to him about some school shit – an' before any of us know it, tha punk's beatin' up Twigsy like he's a punchin' bag! I tell'im off, right, say he's just a shithead an' to stop or else, like – an' he gives me one push. Just one shove, like. Next thing I know, Imma standin' over the punk, blood on my bat and on my shirt... and on my face... an' he's just lyin' there on tha ground. Rest'a tha team looks at me like I grew an extra head, an' I was just _shocked_ – I didn't remember pickin' up tha bat – and then coach Nashton runs over, pulls me away an' walks me to the bleachers, tellin' me to stay put. I didn't even know tha police had come until I kinda came to my senses at the police station, and my mom was standin' there arguing with one'a tha cops. I got sent to juvie then – my mom was in tears, an' my brothers were all there askin' me what had happened. Pete was, like, standin' there glowerin' down at me, but Steve and Dave were talkin' to me, tellin' me it'd be okay. I was sentenced to two years'a juvie for assault – judge told me I oughta thank my lucky stars I didn't murder tha kid – but durin' my second year, I could sign up for a job program. Pierre got me this job an' that's what brought me here. Turns out they needed a guy with a helluva violent attitude an' a mean sprint – they needed a sluggah like me!”

“Archie, that's...”, Sam said after a second of silence, not sure what to say until he found himself chuckling. The scout was lucky, and even if he'd shown it the wrong way, he was extremely loyal to his friends. “You stood by a friend, defended him – even if it wasn't exactly in the most, uh, _okay_ way-”

“Believe me, I ain't _nevah_ makin' a mistake like that again. I ain't goin' back to prison in my life, Sam – ain't nothin' gonna fuck up ya life like prison. I'm lucky enough that Pierre got me this second chance... I know life ain't handin out third chances, so I gotta make this work. 's Why my mom's always on my case, an' it's why I'm workin' extra hard so I get good recommendations next year, when my contract's up.”

“Ah, Archie, you're one crazy dipstick... and suddenly I feel sorry for the RED team.”, Sam admitted, causing the scout to grin broadly as he heard.

“Ya do, huh? I'll take that as a compliment... now, did'ya come in here just to tell me I'm crazy, or... did ya _need_ somethin'?” Archie managed to keep a straight face as he said it, but when Sam snorted and chuckled, he laughed along with him, and the two started talking about lighter topics.

 


	5. Maybe we were meant to be lonely

“...Herr Dantan, vot are you doink out of bed at zhis hour?”  Gabriel looked up at the sound of the medic's voice, and instantly the world spun around him.  Dizzily, he tried to steady himself, falling halfway against the window, his cheek pressed against the cool window, causing him to realize he was burning up.  Doctor Hartmann, meanwhile, heaved a disapproving sigh.  “I zee you haff been drinking again...”

“Y-yeah, guess I have...”, Gabriel muttered, clenching his hands into fists to find he was clutching a bottle in his right hand – he raised it to his lips to drink from it, but instead of the rush of sweet, vanilla-flavored gin he expected, only a trickle of it met his lips.  “...que diable, mon égreneuse à la vanille est épuisé de nouveau.  Co-comment j'suis suppo-supposé de m'enivrer sans alcool?  ...Je suppose que vous n'avez p-pa-pas quelque chose po-pour ça, docteur, hein?”  When the medic gave him an annoyed but also dumbfounded look, he added in plain though inebriated English: “I need somethin' to fuckin' _t-take the edge off_ -”

“Haff you taken zhe medication tonight, like you vere zuppozed to, herr Dantan?”  Something in the man's voice, or the way he looked uncomfortable all of a sudden, rubbed Gabriel the wrong way, and the pyro groaned loudly.

“Fffuckin' meds – I am not talkin' about th-them, merde, je parle de stress, et de-des besoins, et de chagrin, mmmais c'est pas comme vous comprendriez une seule chose de ce-ceux-là!  ...Ahh, ça fait mal d'avoir besoin ... avoir des b-be-besoins et personne pour les satisfaire ... à brû- à brûler avec le besoin et n'avoir ri-rien à éteindre le feu à part d-de quelque chose qui te t-tue lentement.”  He looked at the medic and saw, to his surprise, a more familiar face replace the man's.  Vaguely, he knew that it had to mean the engineer had joined them, but his alcohol-clouded mind didn't see how that could have happened.  “Mon cœur s-so-souffre ... mais c'est quand même mieux, tellement mieux, q-que l'insomnie, ou qu'être infidèle à W-will. Et s-si je me saoule à mort, ça y est. Je m'en fffous, vraiment, je simplement ne veux pas plu-plus souffrir.”

“Gabe, son, d'yeh mean it or is tha' the alcohol talkin'?”, Grant's voice issued softly from his left – he was aware of being pushed into a chair, but he didn't know where he was or how he'd gotten there.  'Finally, I'm getting holes in my brain... maybe now I can sleep...', the pyro mused, his thoughts feeling detached.  He shrugged, feeling a smile tug at the corners of his mouth as he spoke on.

“Grant, y-you're golden... m-mais tu ne comprends ri-rien... _personne_ le comprend...”

“What don't we understand 'bout, son?”, the engineer asked – and whether it was the alcohol or the grief that got Gabriel to react vehemently, he didn't know, but suddenly a tidal wave of emotions swept him off his feet and he could feel his body move without him controlling it.

“Je parle de la douleur de voir ma mère mourir, encore et encore, et ne pas être capable de l'arrêter, en sachant que c'était de ma faute! Si je ne l'avais pas invité à dîner, elle serait encore vivant et je ne serais pas foiré!  _Merde_ , t'comprends pas?  J'ai merdé tout!”  Suddenly, he found it hard to breathe – his lungs were burning, and his heart was burning, and his _eyes_ were burning, and his skin felt hot, and he found himself forcing the words out in between shaking, sobbing breaths: “E-even Will...  Even now... I should know better, fuck it, but even now I'm still fuckin' up everything I've got... I should...  J'sais pas... j'sais plus... ah, M-marylise-”

“Yew prayin' t'yer mom, son?”, the engineer asked, and Gabriel nodded, feeling his every resistance broken and his brain unable to control anything anymore.

“Elle me garde... m-mon ange à moi, même q-qu'elle pleure... t-tous les jours et les nuites... before battle, I pray to her... 's-send me an angel, I can't fuckin' take this anymore'... m-maybe that's my penance... livin' in sin, b-burning... burning... en brûlant, j'oublie, et pe-peut-être j'serais oublié...”  The engineer didn't answer – for the longest time, Gabriel could only look at his hands, at the scars across them, and feel the weight of his life press down on him again, and mutter to himself: “M-marylise... maman... m'emmène... lift me up, away from here...  j'ne veux plus...”

“Gabriel?”  Grant's voice came back, accompanied by a gentle touch on his shoulder from the man's hand – the pyro would recognize it anywhere – along with the slightly less familiar press of hands covered by latex gloves on his arm and the distant pain of a needle being inserted into his arm.  “...doctor Hartmann just gave yeh somethin' t'sleep, son...”  Gabriel nodded meekly – his anger was spent, his sadness too overwhelming to even lift a finger or move his lips for any kind of protest, and soon he felt his body grow even more heavy and detached and his mind gladly welcomed the blackness of oblivion, even if only temporarily.  He knew he wouldn't remember his drinking or his anger when he came to the next morning in his own bed – he only wished, as his last thoughts slipped from his grasp like water and wind, that he could forget his sorrow and his pain the same way.

 

“...I'm going to sleep...”, Sam said at the evening of his fourth day at the BLU compound, grinning when Archie and Yaroslav stopped their friendly arm-wrestling match to give him a thumbs-up.  As the pyro walked away, he mused about how friendly his teammates were, and how easily he'd told the story of his misfortune to Archie.  The scout's words came to mind easily, and Sam smiled when he repeated the part about the others being his new family.  'I wonder if he meant it... and I wonder what my new 'family' will think when they find out... I mean, the medical exam is tomorrow already.  In two more weeks, I'll go back for my reconstructive surgery, and then I'll look... then I'll _be_ whole again... but would they understand why I had to lie?  Or will they-'  Sam's thoughts stopped abruptly as he rounded the corner just in time to see Jane enter Dell's room dressed in his nightgarb – the engineer's hand appeared in sight to pull the soldier in a little more quickly, which made clear that their meeting was clandestine, and the pyro felt slightly dumbfounded, trying to think of a rational reason for the soldier to visit the engineer dressed in pyjamas but coming up with blanks across the board.  '...Well, they're allowed to... have something going on... but I have to pass Dell's room to go to my own room and that could get awkward...'  Making the decision to quickly walk by and to whistle loudly to block out any sounds he could possibly pick up, the pyro virtually ran to his own room without looking around, entering it and clicking the door shut before exhaling in slight relief.  'Well, Sam, like _that_ wasn't completely embarrassing... ah well, best check my bandages again, see what the damage is...', he mused as he undressed.  That morning, the bandages had come up clean, but he was anxious to see what a day's exercise, slaving over a hot stove and playing 'tickle the heavy guy' with Archie and Yaro would have done to the scars and wounds that were still present.  He was prepared for the worst sight yet  since the bandages had felt wet just an hour before – Sam imagined them soaking with more pus than the previous three days combined, perhaps even blood – but when he'd stripped down to just the bandages, he found no blood or pus on them, and peeling them off revealed no new wounds or torn skin on his torso.  '...Sweat?', the pyro mused, feeling slightly triumphant.  Sweat would mean that the newly repaired skin _worked_ and that was, of course, cause for celebration... but the look of his body didn't inspire any such feeling of victory.  The reflection he saw in the mirror was of a scarred, pudgy, hairless, asexual being with eyes boring into his own body, half envious and half mocking, making him sigh mournfully.  'In only half a month, I'll have the reconstructive surgery and then I'll be whole again...  Shit, I even look half-guy, half-girl...  Only half a month away, Sam...', he said to himself as he put on the nightgown again – the medic had laundered it that evening and had delivered it only a few minutes before, so it was still slightly warm – and went to bed, trying his hardest not to muse on either Jane and Dell being together or on doctor Harvey's visit the next day.

 

The next morning, Sam awoke hearing heavy breathing, and it took him a second to get his bearings.  After that, though, it was only a matter of a look at the other bed in the room to find the source of the sounds disturbing his peaceful slumber: Arsène and Archie evidently figured that he was fast asleep and the spy had laid himself down by the scout's side, fully dressed though that didn't seem to stop Archie from getting his hands on him everywhere he wanted while Arsène probably was indulging his lover much the same.  It prompted Sam to shake his head and chuckle – 'Of course it figures that they'd try and get it on in the weekend, I haven't had Archie missing from our room during the week yet and he did confess to the two of them being together...' - which in turn led to the scout and spy quickly ceasing their activities and turning to him in clear shock.

“You guys, ah, having fun?”, he asked innocently, and Arsène nearly _rolled_ out of the bed hastily, which had the scout groan.  Sam felt instantly sorry for disturbing the two and figured he could make amends by giving the two a little space and time to finish what they'd started: getting up and gathering some clothes and a few shower supplies, he walked to the door.  “Well, don't mind me... Arsène, you really shouldn't leave business unfinished.  I'll just give you some privacy...”  Taking care to carefully close the door, Sam left the two and headed for the end of the other hallway, where there were separate shower facilities.  He couldn't actually shower yet – the skin was mostly healed but still nowhere near its former level of wholeness – but he figured that he could at least freshen up a little and take care of some easy checks that his doctor had requested he do as soon as possible.

Without thinking about it, Sam unlocked the metal door at the end of the hallway, ending up once again in the small corridor but this time heading right, into the shower area.  The pyro had never actually been into the shower area the rest of the team used, but he presumed it'd look largely the same: a communal dressing area and communal showers, with maybe one or two sectioned off from the others.  'They feel like gym showers...', he mused as he took off the flowery nightgown, checking it quickly to find no stains had appeared overnight.  Instead of walking to the showers, however, Sam moved to the washbasins that lined the far wall.  'The others probably shave an' brush their teeth here... heh, the only luck this horrible fire brought is that I'll never have to do that again...', he mused, feeling oddly optimistic again for the first time in weeks.  'If only Damien could see me now, like this!  ...Okay, here goes...'  Sam still remembered how the nurses at the hospital washed him, how they'd taught him to take care and how to feel clean even if he hadn't spent any time under an actual shower for weeks anymore.  He'd been a quick learner – back then, he'd tenaciously kept telling himself that that'd be his reality now, but now he knew that he would be able to shower again and the knowledge just came in handy.  He focused especially on the areas that doctor Harvey would want to examine, being his chest, his groin and backside, and his feet; after that, he used the special spray on 'dry shampoo' for the tufts of bright orange hair he still possessed on his head.  Once he was done, feeling clean and satisfied, he took some skin lotion the doctor had given him with the express instruction to start using as soon as his skin didn't ooze pus every hour of the day anymore and he started applying it sparingly all over his body.  Where the skin still felt thin and slightly taut, he didn't rub it in, instead relying on the natural absorption capacities of the newly formed tissue; but where the skin had healed long ago already, like on his shins and his scalp, he massaged it in, relishing in the warmth under his fingers and the supple feeling of his new skin.  His face got treated last, the massage a lot more careful there since his skin still felt paper-thin and fragile, especially around his mouth and eyes: the skin sucked up the moisturizing lotion like dry ground sucked up rain.  It wasn't much, but the look and feel of his skin under his hands, not yet fully whole again but _whole_ enough, made Sam grin broadly and even whistle a song thoughtlessly as he washed his hands to rinse off excess lotion.  He felt a little more ready to face his doctor now, even if he'd get his brain picked and even if he knew not all the news could be positive.

 

It was a coincidence more than anything that Gabriel passed by the heavy, locked metal door at the end of the hallway.  He regularly used the window as an escape when he wanted to go outside without any of his teammates realizing, and he'd used to keep his 'pyro purse' tucked neatly away under the windowsill on the outside, where no one would find it; nowadays, it housed his secret emergency backup stash of vanilla gin, his weapon of choice against bad nights like the previous one.  'Merde, all I remember is pourin' it in like water... then... nothin'.  Dantan, t'es vraiment malade...', he berated himself as he opened the window and felt around on the outside to verify if his bottle of the good stuff was still there, and whether it was full or already empty.  It was then that he heard the song.  The words came to mind without him having to make an effort: after all, it was a well-known song, and one he'd so frequently sung with his sister that they'd known it by heart by the time their parents had separated.  '...Quand il me prend dans ses bras, il me parle tout bas, je vois la vie en roooooseeeee...', he mentally sung along, humming out loud before he knew it – and keeping up the humming even when he walked away again once he found his bottle and felt the weight of it, which indicated he'd not drunk it empty the night before.  In fact, he mused, that probably made his humming all the more cheery, knowing that he still had _something_ to tide him over in case he had another rough night, something that _wouldn't_ be either of his worse addictions.  He'd hate himself if he stepped out on Will one more time, and his teammates would hate him if he tried to incinerate another shed, not to mention the Administrator might finally be fed up with his inability to control his impulses and send him back to the hell she'd saved him from.  His humming faltered for a second when he considered the possibility that he'd ever have to return to that place, where he'd been in such tremendous mental distress because he hadn't even had a simple _lighter_ or even a _match_ -

“...Gabriel, son, y'okay?  Not thinkin' 'bout a repeat'a last night, are yeh?”, Grant asked – he only then noticed that the engineer had started walking beside him, and he shook his head.

“No, Grant, I'm okay, thanks for the concern.  ...I was just thinkin' back about _l'enfer d'ou j'suis venu ici_.”  The engineer, fortunately, seemed to understand his French and nodded solemnly in reply.

“Ah kin see how that makes yer good mood turn sour, son... ain't nobody happy in a place like tha'.  But what had yeh happy?”

“I... don't know...”, the pyro admitted – as soon as he spoke the words, he realized that that was the truth.  He didn't know why the song had cheered him up: he didn't even know where the song had come from.  “...Think... Well, I was in the hallway, uh, lookin' out the window, an' then I heard it.  Maybe someone over at RED was singin' it?”, he mused, and the engineer chuckled, shaking his head.

“Y'were in the dead end hallway?  Tha' door don't end up in RED base but in a bunker, son – 's where they kept gold in the old days, but they cleaned it out when they converted the bunker for Mann Co.  Ain't nothin' there but cobwebs an' mouse droppings.  Or maybe th'old skeleton of a thief tha' thought he could steal some gold...”, the engineer joked, patting Gabriel on the shoulder – a process that went awkwardly, since the pyro was over two feet taller than the Texan – and nudging his head to the dining room.  “Breakfast is served – pancakes an' syrup, thought yeh'd like-”

“Ah, ouais, bien sûr!”, Gabriel said, readily letting himself be pulled along by Grant.

 

“You guys, I'd best get going, I think my doctor's waiting for me.”, Sam said softly later that day, a little after two PM – most of the others had already gone back to their rooms for whatever they liked to do, whether it be playing video games like Archie or engage in some light reading like Siegfried had confessed to, but two or three of the men still sat alongside Sam in the dining room, enjoying the quiet and calmth of the weekend.  Yaroslav, who had been playing a match of checkers against the pyro, nodded softly and spoke up slightly mournfully, as if he genuinely regretted seeing the pyro go for a medical examination.

“...So we see you again at restaurant at five, da?”  Sam smiled when he nodded.

“Yes.  You guys have fun for me too, you hear?  Think of your poor pyro having to stay back here for a check-up...”  He quickly walked outside, where he heaved a sigh and walked past most rooms without even noticing whether the doors were open or not.  That morning, he hadn't minded the doctor's visit, but now, with it approaching faster every passing second, he really, _really_ wished doctor Harvey could've stayed at home.  He hated the physical examinations because they kept showing how androgynous he looked, and he hated the psych evaluations because _he wasn't crazy_ , no matter what some judge thought, no matter what his parents thought... and when he thought of his parents, as always, his relatively okay mood turned sour in a heartbeat.  “...Oh Lord...”, Sam groaned as he took out a key from the pocket of his track pants, opening the door and pushing it open wide, trying desperately to lose some of the anxious energy he'd built up worrying.  The rest of that energy fortunately faded when he was greeted from inside the medbay on the left side.

“Ah, Sam!”  Doctor Benedict Harvey – the pyro was allowed to call him 'Ben' but insisted on 'doc Harvey' or 'doctor' – was a man in his early fifties who looked like an overgrown leprechaun, with a youthful face and hair that looked blonde unless you looked really closely so the grey started to become noticeable, and who possessed a voice that was just as energetic and vibrant as he looked to be.  But what really made Sam relax again was the fact that he looked just as calm and at ease in the base's state-of-the-art medical area as he did in the hospital.  The pyro smiled softly, and felt suddenly a little shy.  Of course the doctor knew exactly what his new job description was – he _had_ to know, since he'd needed to give the final okay and manage to convince the hospital board that no, sending a burn victim to this job that'd involve fire on a very intense daily base was _not_ dangerous or bordering on lunacy – but Sam felt a little... remorseful all of a sudden.  It was that, more than anything else, that got him to speak up softly.

“Doc Harvey... could we do this quickly, please?  My teammates are expecting me for dinner in three hours.”  He expected the man to protest, but instead he got a nod and a sympathetic smile.

“Okay, I understand. I'll be thorough, though, but I'll be as quick as I can be... just undress behind the screen while I get the gear up and running...”  Sam sidled behind the screen, shimmying out of his track pants, discarding the sneakers and the short-sleeved T-shirt he'd worn, hesitating about discarding his underwear but then remembering that there was no reason for the doctor _not_ to need him to undress completely, since most of the examinations would concern the healing of her 'service exits'.  While he heard the scanner and the ultrasound device switch on, he quickly pulled off the boxershorts he wore and then stepped out from behind the screen stark naked and feeling more self-conscious than the first time he'd exited his hospital bed.  He didn't need the mirror anymore to know he looked like an overgrown child – largely hairless, with a pudgy build and no evidently male or female characteristics – but apparently doctor Harvey found the sight of him worthy of approval and even slight cheer.

“Ah!  I see your skin's almost fully repaired, apart from a few tight spots around your joints...  Very good!  I hadn't though you'd improve this quickly, Sam, dear – clearly we made the right decision in letting you come here early!  The bandages are no longer needed, and we can cut back on the Grow-a-gen in your daily cocktail.  How's the pain?”

“Yesterday the cocktail made me woozy...”, the pyro admitted with a shy smile, causing the doctor to nod.

“So we'll leave out the Novocaine and the Nurofen...  I think it'll just be a quarter dose of Grow-a-gen, an emergency supply of Novocaine, some Pulmodan for your throat and lungs since you're still a bit hoarse... oh, yes, and let's not forget the Mydolin and the Praevitium for the scars.  You mentioned dinner?”, he asked amiably, his tone of voice airy though Sam could easily guess it wasn't the food he meant to address, so the pyro nodded.  “...Be wary of alcohol for a while.  You might get inebriated a lot more quickly due to the Mydolin and the Pulmodan.  Now, about your, uh, _other_ medication...”, he said delicately, and now Sam found himself chuckling mentally.  The doctor seemed to be somewhat concerned, which was endearing.  “...Will you be needing Progyna already?”

“...Well, I can understand where the question comes from - I mean... the indigenous population makes it kind of necessary... but not just yet.  When the reconstructive surgery takes place, you can give me that as well, can't you?”, Sam said, causing the doctor to smile and nod.

“I see your point - indeed we can.  So I'll put you down for that as well.  Let's get started then!  We've got a small booklet of tests to work through today, let's start with the easy ones, joint mobility and skin flexibility.”  Sam walked over to a table, lifting his legs to allow the doctor to move his legs in a motion vaguely reminiscent of riding a bicycle.  The man's shrewd eyes rested on his knees the entire time.  Then, he did a similar thing with Sam's arms, and then he asked the pyro to sit up straight while he moved his arms to test how well his shoulder joints could still move.  Clearly all went just as it should, and after a mere ten minutes of wiggling, turning and flexing every possible limb in every possible way, the doctor nodded and moved on to skin flexibility, pinching Sam lightly along certain spots on his body.  That test only took five minutes before the doctor moved on to test reflexes, then lung capacity and exhaled air quality, then – the most painful of all tests, since it involved making a scratch on Sam's earlobe – blood clotting, followed by taking a vial or three of blood for several tests ranging from communicable diseases to elevated white or platelet count and sepsis.  Finally, the doctor made his final notes and turned to Sam again to share the results: “This looks excellent.  Joint mobility's back to at least ninety percent, your skin's just as strong and flexible as it was pre-burns, your bloodclotting speed's good as well, your lung capacity shows that your lungs are finally getting back to full health and capacity... but now comes the part you detest... part your legs...”

“Oh, doctor, do we have to?”, Sam said with a sigh, already knowing well enough that neither he nor the doctor had a choice, and he moved his legs apart so the doctor could take a look at his private parts, or what was left of them at least.  If Sam was honest, the damage there was most distressing of all.  He didn't mind that he had next to no hair left, he didn't care that his body looked completely devoid of any gender-distinguishing traits... but he'd had a healthy and active love life before he'd gotten doused in burning gasoline, and now it didn't look like he could have much of that anymore.  The reconstructive surgery would, of course, take care of that aspect as well, but still...

“...Hmm, there doesn't seem to be too much damage there...”, the doctor interrupted his thoughts, and Sam mentally exhaled a sigh of relief.  Maybe he was wrong: maybe he was just frustrated.  “Did you use the catheter all the time?”, doctor Harvey asked, to which Sam answered with a nod before elaborating verbally.

“Yes.  It did come undone about three or four days ago, but I managed to get it back in the way you showed me.”

“You can ask the team's medic for assistance when you do, you know...”, the doctor said, but Sam shook his head fiercely.

“I can't, doctor!  I... at least, not yet...  I mean, doctor Harvey, this is a team of eight men I'm working with, some of which wouldn't blink if they stepped across the line between pretending to kill a man and actually _killing_ a man... do you know what they'd do if they knew?  I'd be torn to shreds!”

“...I see your point.  But the Administrator-General has complained that doctor Steinheim feels bypassed by our arrangements, so I have arranged with her that he'll do your follow-up exams, starting tomorrow evening to see how you fare without the catheter.  I expect it'll be uncomfortable at first, but remember what I taught you...”

“Drink a gallon every hour, go to the bathroom every hour, check for growths and bladderstones, and call you as soon as I piss blood – I remember, doctor...”, Sam admitted before sighing.  “Doctor Steinheim's discreet, and not nearly as much of an oddball as I'd thought him to be, so I guess I'm okay with it... but I swear...”

“He may be part of your ragtag band of colleagues, but he is a doctor and he will respect doctor-patient confidentiality.  I'll give you a list of the procedures he has to do, so you can give it to him tomorrow.  ...Now let's check your hair.”  Sam gladly used the change of subject and presented his mostly-barren scalp for the doctor to check, which he did meticulously before finishing with a sigh and a statement of the obvious: “You'll need hair transplants... there's not a hair follicle alive in the new skin.  Want to have armpit hair and pubic hair again?”

“They transplant that as well?”, the pyro said with a mixture of interest and disgust before shaking his head and smiling.  “Nah, less hair means less to shave.  And whatever peach fuzz I do get there, I'll gladly bear.”  He looked at the doctor and bit his lip, wondering if he could ask what was on his mind before blurting it out anyway.  “Doctor, I... I was wondering, even with the surgery, do you think I can ever...?”  He let his voice trail off, hoping his physician would understand what he meant, and the man picked up on the rest of the thought effortlessly, answering with an almost fatherly tone.

“That's the reason for the reconstructive surgery, Sam, dear.  We must make sure you can live like you did before.  That includes intercourse, it goes without saying.”  He gave her a sideways glance before adding: “...Why?  Did one of the 'indigenous population' catch your eye?”

“Well, there are a couple of nice-looking men on my team, but no one in particular.  But you never know how it goes – maybe in a year, one of them gets replaced and his replacement turns out to be exactly my type.  Besides, I was an active twentysomething before it happened, and I intend to be again.”, Sam said somewhat shyly, causing doctor Harvey to nod in understanding, quickly speaking up in apology.

“I'm sorry for embarrassing you, Sam, dear... let's just... move on to your psychological evaluation...”, he said – and again, Sam groaned, stalking off behind the screen to put his clothes back on so he could feel comfortable while talking to the doctor so the man could report back about his psychological state as well.  However, once Sam stepped out from behind the screen again readjusting his track pants so they wouldn't fall off his hips, the doctor motioned for him to sit down – that was a first, normally the man already asked his first question the moment Sam showed his face again.  The reason for that became apparent the next second, when the man hesitantly voiced: “I have some good news and some less good news regarding your psych evaluation...”

“Bad news first, doc Harvey...”, Sam said, sagging onto a chair, prompting the doctor to nod grimly.

“Your parents have tried to have you collocated again from abroad, and this time they were using your new profession as a grounds for proving pyromania.”

“What?!”, the pyro said, instantly feeling rage and pure loathing for his parents and how horrible they were for continuing to try and punish _him_ for what had happened.  “Of all the low, dirty, disgusting...”, he started, only for the doctor to shush him, after which he sat back into the chair, grumbling loudly.

“...But there's good news as well.  Your brother-”

“They finally found Michael's body?!”, Sam instantly asked, getting the doctor to shake his head slowly and mournfully.

“No... no, it's about your other brother, Damien.  Your two brothers were rather close, I imagine – Damien seems to have paid for Michael to visit him often.  Well, apparently, Damien apparently had Michael evaluated by a psychiatrist on one of those visits, and that psychiatrist diagnosed bipolar disorder.  He produced the psychiatrist's report at the hearing regarding your collocation to show that you did not light that fire but that your _brother_ did and that you tried your hardest to save him.  He also testified about the job offer you got, and the reasons why you took it, and I'm glad to report the judge ruled that you're not obliged to have psych evaluations again.”

“Re-really?!  Oh, doctor Harvey, that's wonderful news!”, Sam said, launching from the chair and embracing the doctor in a bear hug, swinging the man around before he chuckled.

“It is – and my, you've grown strong, too, during this week!  Last week, you struggled to lift even the lightest of your suitcases, and now you're lifting me easily!  ...I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it, this job is doing you a world of good, Sam, dear...”  He then nodded.  “Unfortunately, even though I don't have to do a full psych evaluation anymore, I still am required to fill in a short questionnaire regarding your mental condition for the judge to add to the file to further prove that psychological counseling is not needed.  How do you feel about your new job?”  Sam nodded and sat back down, speaking freely and frankly about the work, the safety precautions taken so far to ensure that the burns weren't aggravated.  However, about halfway through her explanation, the doctor interrupted her again: “...From your explanation, Sam, dear, it feels like you... I don't know... like you feel at ease blending into the group so well.  You do know that your reconstructive surgery will make it very obvious that you are _not_ who you appear like to them now, right?”  It was spoken with careful deliberation, the words painstakingly chosen to be neutral and yet inquisitive, and Sam sighed.

“Doctor, that I know, and believe me when I say I dread the day when some of them figure it out.  I don't want to lie, but do I have any other choice?  They wouldn't believe the truth anyway.”  The doctor nodded, jotting down a few last things before rising from his chair with a loud scrape of the feet over the tile floor.

“...I have all the info I need.  ...Well then, do you have any more questions?”

“Yeah, can I shower already?”, Sam asked, and the doctor snickered softly, shaking his head.

“Sam, dear, I take it you didn't wash for a week?”

“I did _wash_ myself, eugh, the thought alone...”, Sam muttered in reply, and doctor Harvey seemed to take pity, adding in a more soothing tone.

“Of course you can shower, just make sure the water is below fifty degrees and to use hypoallergenic soap.  You can shower with your colleagues until the reconstructive surgery – I'd strongly suggest using the separate bathroom here afterwards, though, if you really are afraid those men'll misbehave.  You know your teammates best, after all.”  He rose and checked his watch, grinning broadly when he did so.  “Well, I think that's a new record, Sam, dear!  It's only three thirty-five... we still have a bit of time left, I think, before your team's going to start to miss you.  So, uh, is there anything you want to talk about, even non-medically related?”  Sam pondered on his offer for a few seconds before remembering what he'd seen the previous evening and nodding.

“...As a matter of fact, doctor, there is something I could use your, uh, _expert opinion_ about.  You see, yesterday, I, uh...  There's this soldier here, mister Doe, and he went to visit our engineer.  Only it was late at night, and the soldier had on his pyjamas already.  I don't think he needed anything mechanical fixed...  I mean, I know that it doesn't mean they're _together_ , because the both of them are married – happily married, even...  I just don't know how to let the both of them know that I know about them without either scaring them off visiting each other or getting the _living daylights beaten out of me_ -”, the pyro admitted, and the doctor blushed, beckoning for his patient to sit down as he mulled his thoughts over and considered everything two more times.  Finally, when he spoke up, he smiled ruefully.

“You are right about it being of little to no meaning about their personalities.  It's a well-known and well-documented phenomenon that men, when in exclusively male company for long periods of time, get, uh, _liberal and creative_ in scratching their itches – though it mostly happens in prison, of course-”

“I know.”, Sam said, nodding softly, allowing the doctor to continue.

“Well, but as to how you can let them know you know... that's something I'm afraid I can offer only little advice in.  I guess it'd be the wisest to talk to whichever of the pair would have the least, uh, _volatile_ reaction.  From what you've told me about your fellow, uh, mercenaries... I think it'd be best to have a talk with your engineer, mister Dell.  Tell him what you saw, tell him that you're fine with the situation and that you won't tell anyone else unless he says it's okay... because for all you know, the rest of the team accepts their, uh, _relationships_ just fine.”

“I doubt that – Archie, the scout I share my room with, told me he is bisexual and mentioned in the same breath that not everyone accepts his preferences on the team.  He mentioned the medic and the soldier-”

“Ah, well, I'm afraid that's part and parcel of a liaison like your soldier and your engineer have – denial and outright dismissal.  As for your medic, I have met him and he, like most of my colleagues, isn't opinionated about the subject.  Maybe your friend Archie is just... afraid of their reactions if he tells them.  That doesn't have to mean the situation is like he described it.  ...Well, uh, but there you have it.  Is there anything else you wanted to have a quick talk about?  Maybe your parents?”, he suggested, but Sam shook his head vehemently.

“No, doctor.  Really, I don't want to talk about them.  As far as I'm concerned, they can make the first move to patch things up now... and until they do, they're far away from here.  Anyway, that _wouldn't_ exactly be a _quick_ talk.”, Sam admitted, causing the doctor to nod and smile apologetically.

“True.  Well, if that was all, I guess this is goodbye until in two weeks' time!”  That had Sam smiling broadly as he got up from the chair.

“Doc Harvey, I hope I never have to see you while I'm conscious again.”, the pyro admitted, which made the doctor grin as he placed his hand somewhat dramatically over his heart.

“Sam, dear, that hurts an old man... besides, you'll have to bear with me one more time, since I'll be picking you up the day before the procedure to bring you to the hospital, okay?”  Sam smiled and nodded.  “I'll let you know the details  via telephone.  Now, I hope you have fun with your team tonight.”

“Oh, I will.”, Sam admitted, smiling as he walked to the door, opening it before turning back to the doctor.  “...And, uh, thanks, doctor.”

“What for, Sam, dear?  All I did was my job.”, the man said, but Sam shook his head, feeling a rush of cold air hit the barren skin there.  Just the _thought_ of once again having a full head of hair made him feel optimistic, which was why his answer to the doctor was all the more warmly spoken.

“You did a lot more than just practice medicine, doctor.  You gave me back _life_.  And for that... I can't ever thank you enough...”

 

“...Gabe, man, we ain't even _eaten_ yet an' ya already drinkin'!”, Billy complained loudly when the pyro ordered himself the first liquor that came to mind the moment he walked in the door of their usual weekend diner.  The other team was already sitting at their usual tables, enjoying a beer and watching the final half of a TV show on the bar's big television set.  Before replying to his boyfriend, Gabriel made sure to take a sip of his order, wincing at the strength of it.

“...Ugh, _brandy_ , how the hell did I ever order this...”, the pyro muttered to himself, looking at the scout and adding at a regular volume, his tone more soothingly: “...I promise ya, Will, one glass to take the edge off, that's all I'm havin' before dinner.”

“Yeah, ya bettah...”, the scout said, glaring at the glass of brandy in the pyro's hand as if it were a rattlesnake – instead of staying by Gabriel's side, Billy instead walked over to Archie, the BLU scout, probably to talk about the new pyro.  It was not only a clear sign of dislike from his lover, but it also left Gabriel standing alone, which in turn made the man feel alone again.  His mind wandered to his new colleague briefly; after a quick look around that revealed the man wasn't there yet, however, Gabriel mentally groaned and meant to stalk off to the bar to sit further away from the rest of his team when he felt someone pull him back.

“...Gabriel, son, y'look like a drowned puppy.”

“Grant, j'vous en prie-”, he started, but the man that had held him back was not his own team's engineer.  Instead, in some odd twist of fate, it was Dell Conagher from BLU, looking at him like he was an orphan girl sitting by the side of the road to cry.  “...Dell, man, if Grant sent ya over 'cause he's tired of dealin' with my shit, so help me...”, he ground out, only for the other engineer to sigh and shake his head.

“Nah, son, he ain't sent me over here.  Came here outta mah own motivation.  Grant did tell me y'excited 'bout meetin' Sam.”  It took a while for the name to click in Gabriel's mind – or rather, for the absence of knowledge of the name to mean something.

“Oh, yeah!  Your new pyro – well, kinda, yeah-”

“Pardner, yeh're just 'bout as good a liar as y'are at stayin' off the drink.”, he said, nudging his head at the now-empty glass Gabriel held: the pyro hadn't even noticed himself drink it down, and that fact made him groan softly and put the glass back on the bar, turning to the BLU engineer to answer more frankly.

“...okay, yeah, I'm fuckin' thrilled you guys have a new firebug, and I'm real glad I finally get to meet him after offin' him a few times-”

“And _gettin' killed_ by 'im, too – doubt anyone's every gonna forget th'way he dodged yer Axtinguisher an' planted his own axe right in th'back of tha' thick skull'a yers.”, Dell said with a warm chuckle, causing Gabriel to blush slightly.  He was glad the engineer didn't mention what had preceded that moment: he'd been chasing the BLU pyro until he tripped, and he'd intended to plant his Axtinguisher into the prone form.  The only way the other man had found himself able to mount a defense was by kicking _as hard as he could_ at him.  One foot landed against his thigh, and he'd had the bruise for days... but the other foot had made sure he could forget about sleeping with Billy for the rest of the week.  “...Sam's just 's anxious t'meet yeh.”, Dell added, his voice calm and clearly apologetic for the way he interrupted the pyro's stream of thoughts, but it was a welcome interruption, Gabriel found.

“Oh, he is, huh?”

“Heck yeah!  Real eager t'get to meet yeh – and t'offer you a drink 'bout kickin' yeh.  He still had the bruise yeh gave 'im in return, so he figured yeh'd have a nice matchin' one.”  Gabriel grinned at the memory of how he'd swung with his left fist and had nearly knocked the other pyro over.  “...But yew an' him are gonna have tuh be a li'l more patient – he had 'is doctor over at base fer a medical exam-”

“He ain't bein' checked out by doctor Steinheim?”, Gabriel asked, nonplussed, and Dell shook his head.

“Nope.  He had 'imself some kind'f accident before he started here – he was covered in bandages for th'first three days on base.  ...But hey, he's gon' be able tuh tell yeh all tha' much better'n ah can.”, the engineer said suddenly, as if he realized that maybe his new fellow mercenary didn't like it when he divulged all of his problems to the world.  “...Anyway, uh, what're yeh gonna eat t'night?”

“Change the subject, yeah, that'll make me forget about the fact the dude _has his own doctor come to base_.”, Gabriel said, but he said it lightly, and he didn't mention the fact again even though it made him curious.


	6. Burning down the house

“Hoo yah!”  Sam looked up, somewhat startled, as Archie shouted while playing at the pinball machine in the bar.  Looking around at the others that had managed to drag him into their poker game, Sam noticed the shy grin Yaroslav cast him and the modest look of shame Dell had when Tavish shouted at the scout, slamming his fist down on the table.

“Keep yer voice down, yeh Boston half-pint!  ...ach, me scrumpeh...”, he said, eyeing the wave of whisky that had sloshed out of his glass and over his stakes on the table with clear regret, though it didn't stop him from speaking up semi-triumphantly the next second: “Allrigh', yeh naeves, lessee what yeh gowt!”

“Pair of aces...”, grunted Jane, and Dell shook his head.  The engineer had wisely folded out in the second round of bets, when Tavish had begun raising the stakes recklessly, muttering something like 'this 'ere's maybe called 'Texas Hold'em' but ain't no Texan gonna hold _this crap_ ', but Sam had been allowed a peek at the cards he'd thrown down and he'd had three queens so he could've even won.  However, the soft shake of his head was the only sign the man gave of ruing the fact that he'd folded out, and he spoke up softly the next second.

“Don't wait fer me, I weren't in on this anymore fer a long time.  Yar?”, he asked the heavy weapons expert he sat next to, causing the thick-set Russian to grunt and reveal his cards, which looked tiny in his hands.

“Three of kind, tens.”

“Sam?”, the demoman asked, but the pyro shook his head.  With cards like his, he didn't want to just show them and be done with it.  Obviously Tavish thought himself the winner, so Sam spoke softly yet challengingly.

“Let's see what you've got first – for dramatic effect.”

“I go' a full house, laddeh!  Three jacks an' two kings!  I'll take yer money now, then...”, the demolition expert said – and now Sam showed his cards while answering triumphantly.

“I don't think so, I got a royal flush!  Feast your eyes on the ten, the royals and the ace of hearts!!”  When the engineer, the soldier, the heavy weapons man and the demoman all groaned, the pyro laughed.  “What?  I warned you that I played a lot of poker back home, and I told you lot that you'd be lucky if you won half of the hands we'd play!  It's your own fault for not wanting to believe me...  Oh wow, you guys sure don't play for peanuts – Jane, how much did you lose?”

“...'Bout three hundred, why?”, the soldier said casually, causing Sam to blink.

“Well, _sure_ , that's just _spending money_ after all... do you want some back?”

“No, Sam, you've won it fair and square!  Besides, it sounds like a lot more than it is, we get paid a fortune for fighting five days a week for ten hours a day.”, he explained, and Sam rolled his eyes.  The paycheck had been the least of his concerns when he took the job.  He hadn't even checked his bank account for the past half year, so money was like a distant care of his, at first because there wouldn't be a paycheck coming in anyway, and now because he had to _heal up_ first.

“Well, okay, if you're sure, sarge...  But at least allow me to buy all of you a nice cold pint with my winnings!”  The suggestion was met with cheers from his colleagues, who had run dry in one way or another during their last hand.  However, when he rose, the others protested, to which Sam answered quickly: “You guys, I am going to quit when I'm ahead – and besides, I want to talk to the other pyro, after all the stories I've heard about him from Archie... where...?”

“Standink by zee bar, Sam.”, Arsène said, wearing a linen shirt and form-fitting jeans that complimented his physique – looking his team's spy over, Sam got an idea, causing him to grin as he grabbed the other man by the shoulders and carefully switched their places so he stood next to the table and Arsène stood at his spot.

“Well, while _I_ go off to have a friendly talk to my fellow firehandler, _Arsène_ is going to fill in for me – no protests, Arsène, it'll keep you out of trouble...”, the BLU pyro said, chuckling when the spy looked insulted, though the others' protests drowned the spy's out.  However, he was past caring about whether the rest of his team thought Arsène to be a cheater, absorbed as he instantly was in looking for the RED pyro.  He'd heard the stories: the man, Gabriel, was supposedly an addict, with his poisons of choice alcohol, fire-starting, and sex, all of it indiscriminately and none of it with much approval from anyone, apparently, because Archie had told stories of shouting matches and burnt-down utility sheds .  However, there had been gaping holes in the story, not to mention that everyone that drank, did so for a reason – to forget, to get a thrill, to try and kill themselves...  Sam took his empty glass firmly in hand as he walked in the direction of the bar, where some of the RED team were standing, engrossed in conversation.  The scrawny boy with the rock band T-shirt had to be their scout, Billy Jameson, and the man with the heavy tan and the loose slacks over an equally loose and airy shirt would most likely be their engineer Grant Dillinger; there also was no mistaking the tall man with the bright red mop of hair and the eyepatch over his right eye, who would be the RED team's resident demolition expert.  But there was only one man that was as tall as the pyro had been.  He sat at the edge of the group, his back turned to them, nursing a glass of a milky white liquid.

Suddenly, Sam felt hesitant about approaching the man.  Would he be amiable?  Would he be even worse than the picture Archie had painted?  Would he talk down to him because he considered him inferior?  'I'd like to see him bloody try!', Sam found himself mentally voicing as he took the final two steps to the man, causing him to look up from whatever liquor he was downing.  Instantly, his sour look turned to an almost manic grin and he turned around so he was facing Sam as he sat down.

“Hey there, kiddo!  You've got to be Sam, BLU's pyro... pleasure to meet you outside of battle!”  His voice was pleasant, at the very least, and he extended a hand that was riddled with burn scars for Sam to take.  The BLU pyro mused how his own hand felt incredibly smooth when compared to his colleague's and instantly that fact reassured him enough to smile as well as he replied.

“Likewise...  Name's Sam Tennant.  Well, I've just been dying to finally get to meet the man that's killed me more times than I can count – you seem to have a knack for going after me...”

“Mm, nah... I just wanted dibs on getting you killed.  Plus there's no one that knows how to counterattack a pyro like another pyro.  I missed that... Oh shit – uh, sorry, I ain't supposed to swear to someone I just met-”, he quickly corrected himself, his voice betraying the slightest hint of nervous excitement, and Sam grinned.  He hadn't been alone in his anxiety about meeting his new colleague for the first time.

“I can take swearing, don't be alarmed.  In fact, if it makes you feel better, you can swear to the high heavens and you'd bloody well expect me to do the same.”  It felt refreshing to be able to speak frankly, and the taller man seemed to share that sentiment, because he nodded and breathed a half-sigh of relief.

“Well, okay – fair warning, though, you haven't ever heard anyone swear as much as I do... but okay, if ya sure... anyway, I'm Gabriel Dantan, but everyone calls me Gabe, Dante, or Chuckles.”  The other man then cast an appraising gaze at Sam, and more specifically at the empty glass the BLU pyro was holding, before plucking it gingerly out of his hands with a grin that promised trouble.  “...Why don't I buy you something better that that _piss_ they call beer around here?  Somethin' more, uh, _smooth_ and _distilled_?”

“Well, I can't drink yet, my doctor said that my medication might have an adverse effect-”, Sam spoke up, only to get cut off by a sharp shake of the other pyro's head.

“Sammy, take an expert's advice.  Around here, _everything_ 's got an adverse effect, from the food we got to cook to the beds we sleep in; what harm is one, or two, or a couple more, drinks gonna do to you that the rest of it ain't doin' already?”  Sam couldn't place his accent, he found, and he sighed, nodding, which in turn prompted Gabriel to speak up again: “Smart choice, kiddo.  Nothin' like a stiff drink to take the edge off the week... an' I swear, if you get too drunk to walk 'cause of your meds, I am carrying your ass all the way over to your base and I'm tucking you in, how's that sound?”

“Like trouble.”, Sam admitted with a grin, watching as his colleague ordered the two of them a glass of what he'd been having previously.  The man's movements were measured, she found, and the way he kept licking his lips betrayed nervosity – or withdrawal, but Sam refused to believe that he could already be jonesing only a minute after he'd had his last glass.  When the drink came, Sam took a sip – and instantly, another sip, because he'd expected it to be some weird cocktail with cream and eighty-proof grain liquor, not... vanilla gin.  “...You've got a surprising choice of drinks, Gabriel...”, he admitted, earning him a wink from the other pyro.

“Yeah, well, so what if I like my gin to have a _soft_ flavor?  ...So, you like it, huh?”  The way he looked at Sam had the pyro's heart feel a little lighter, and it prompted an eager nod and an equally eager answer from him.

“I'm not picky over drinks, but I find the ones with the _soft_ flavors, like you called it, a lot better than plain old scotch or vodka.  ...So, I've heard a lot about you-”

“All exaggerated, except for whatever ya heard about my bedroom skills, that's all true.”, Gabriel said with a grin that made his previous manic grins look meek, causing Sam to laugh somewhat hoarsely.

“I haven't heard any tales of your exploits, just that you put the 'pyromania' in our jobs and that you like having your drink on...  Okay, and yes, I heard you've either been with or tried to be with virtually everyone on both our teams, but that's about as far as it gets-”  To Sam's surprise, his fellow pyro grumbled and downed his drink, looking sour for a second.

“...That's not true, I still got standards... besides, they don't tell ya that half of 'em were _fuckin' startin' it_ -”

“Gabriel...”, Sam said soothingly, placing an arm on the other pyro's shoulder – Gabriel looked up, his expression betraying surprise, and allowed Sam to speak on.  “Gabriel, I don't _judge_ you, okay?  I'll never judge you.  Besides, who cares that you drink to the high heavens, or that you sleep with anyone willing?  Heh, at this moment, I'd be just about ready to do both as well.”  For a second, Sam could tell, Gabriel looked like he'd ask why – but then, when he drew a breath and Sam mentally prepared the 'I don't want to talk about it yet' answer he'd had ready all week, he got surprised.

“...Sounds like we got a lot in common, Sammy.  So, you could do with a li'l attention, huh?  Anyone in your team interested?”  When he posed the questions, he was back to his manic grin and his gruff tone of voice, but before that... Sam had seen hurt in his eyes, and hope, and the slightest sparkle of something that made his own heart ache.  In that one second, Gabriel hadn't looked like a maniac but like a wounded animal that tried its best to crawl out of the deep, dark place it had gotten into.  It was so similar to how Sam felt – wounded, betrayed by life, ready to grasp for _easy_ answers – that all of the stories suddenly made a lot more sense.  So in order to voice that without actually speaking about it, Sam smiled generously as he answered.

“Well, no outright interest, but I'm sure Archie and Arsène would be more than willing.  Even despite the scars and the way I look.”

“Your scout and your spy, huh?  ...Well, if they can tear their thoughts off each other long enough to allow you in, I could see it happenin', yeah...”

“How about you?”, Sam asked softly, and he sighed.

“...If you want me to talk about that, I need more than just a couple of fuckin' drinks, I probably need a bottle.  Or two.”  He downed his own drink, probably more as a means of evasion than out of actual thirst, and suddenly the drinking made more sense to Sam.  _An escape._   Deciding on a plan of action, Sam quickly followed suit before motioning for the bartender, figuring that if Gabriel wanted to get drunk, the least he could do was make sure the pyro wasn't alone in doing so.  The other pyro noticed his gesture and chuckled softly.  “...Well, wow, Sammy, I thought you couldn't drink?”

“Yeah, well, you're not getting shitfaced alone, Gabriel...  So while we happily skip down the road to perdition, how about telling me what earned you the nickname 'Chuckles'?”  Gabriel's eyes grew wide at first, and a hint of that vulnerability returned – when his grin was back in place, it was sincere, and his voice showed deep gratitude more than anything as he spoke up.

“Hell yeah!  ...So it was back when I was still green an' new, just like you are now...”

 

It was the most fun Gabriel had ever had, he admitted readily to himself – mentally, because out loud he was laughing more than he was _breathing_.

“Fighting fire with fire...”, Sam sung next to him, nudging him and causing him to loudly protest.

“I am _not_ fuckin' singing the Tom Jones parts, I don't have that good a voice!”

“W-well, I'm not singing the Tom Jones parts either and _you_ have a deeper voice so you're stuck doing them!”, Sam said next to him, nudging him again in order to get him to fall in with the lines appearing on the screen, which he did without a second thought.

“Watch out, you might get what you're after... Coooool baby, strange but not a stranger... I'm an ordinary guy-”

“Like hell you are!”, came John's voice from his right, causing Gabriel to instantly swing at him and miss, but it shut the soldier up soon enough for him to fall in with Sam again.

“...Burning down the house!  ...Hold tight-”

“Wait till the party's over!”, Sam sang next to him, his voice high-pitched and scratchy.

“Hoooold tight!”, Gabriel sang, reaching down and wrapping an arm around Sam's waist, squeezing him against him to act out the lyrics, and Sam, to his surprise, did likewise, snaking an arm around his waist in turn as he sang.

“We're in for nasty weather!  There has got to be a way... burning down the house!”  He laughed lightly – to all the others, it was lost in the music, but Gabriel heard it clear as day and grinned as he continued the song.  “Here's your ticket, pack your bags, time for jumping overboard, the transportation is heeeere!”

“Close enough but not too far, maybe you know where you are-”

“Fighting fire with fiireeee!”, Sam effortlessly took over from Gabriel, releasing his fellow pyro to allow him to air-guitar for a second, but then the song picked up again and they hugged again in front of the microphone.

“All wet!”, they sang together, after which Sam once again elbowed Gabriel into taking over.

“Hey, you might need a raincoat!”  'If only, heh...', Gabriel mused – Sam's accent had been unmistakeable, and he knew enough English slang to know that that was a clear double entendre if ever there'd been one.  Sam seemed to have understood it as well, squeezing him tighter for a second and grinning so much he nearly missed his next line and he sang half of a syllable alone.  “Shake down, dreams walkin' in broad daylight...”  There, he was the one grinning and squeezing Sam closer.  It felt like a dream, the way he felt – detached, drunk, but _happy_.  He hadn't felt as happy and pleasant for years, he found – a feeling that seemed to swell and grow as he sung on: “Three-hun-dred-six-ty-five degrees, burning down the house!”

“It was once upon a place, sometimes I listen to myself-”

“Yeah, like now!”, Archie called from the crowd, and Sam laughed so much he nearly missed his next line.

“Gonna come in first place!  People on their way to work, baby, what did you expect?”

“Gonna burst into flaaaaaaames!”, Gabriel sang loudly, winking at Sam who winked back before singing a little more softly.

“Fighting fire with fire...”  There was a short guitar solo part that Gabriel found himself air-guitaring along to: his guilty pleasure in between matches was to pretend his Axtinguisher was in fact a guitar and to air-guitar with it, so it came naturally.  Even though he had never actually played guitar, he mused – Sam's second iteration of his line startled him just in time for him to sing out his next line.

“My house-”

“Out of the ordinary...”, Sam sang with a broad, definitely intoxicated grin, causing Gabriel to swoop in and hold the guy again out of genuine camaraderie and that something else that definitely promised trouble in the near future.

“That's right!”

“Don't want to hurt nobody!”  Gabriel mused silently on the prophetic quality of those words.  Already, in the crowd, he could see Billy look at the display he and Sam were giving with jealousy in his eyes, but then he looked back to his fellow pyro and he knew that, even if the words were prophetic, they didn't mean a thing.  Someone would get hurt, and it'd most likely be _him_.

“Some things sure can sweep me off my feet...”

“Burning down the house!”, Sam chimed in, patting his side almost consolingly before allowing him to sing the rest along with him.

“Watch out, you might get what you're after... coooool baby, strange but not a stranger...  I'm an ordinary guy, burning down the house!”  The song wasn't over, but Sam turned away from the screen and nudged his head at the bar, speaking softly so only Gabriel could hear it.

“...One more for the road?”  It was an invitation for more than a drink – he knew that much from the look in Sam's eyes, recognizing the overt need in them with a pang of hurt – and he considered his options before looking back at Sam, nodding.

“Sure, why not, it's not like we'll get even more off'a our asses drunk-”  Sam's chuckle made the way Billy rolled his eyes and made a dismissive hand gesture smart less, and the way the other pyro pulled him along inspired him to at least walk into hell with his head held high.

 

“...O-oh god, I forgot... w-were the corridorzzz of BLU always thissssh s-swishy?”, Sam stammered as Gabriel walked inside alongside him.  The others had all wandered off, either back to base or to other bars in the town, and in the end Gabriel had offered to walk together to the base 'to make sure we both don't get run over 'cause we thought nappin' in the middle of the road was a good idea'.  But there was something else, too, something in the man's eyes, the tension in the arm he had snaked around his waist... the same something that had Sam's mind electrified, he was willing to bet.  Need.

“S-so, where was I?  Oh yeah... J-john got this bottle'a scotch that looked just like Graeme's... s-so 'course the Sshcottish wonder says 's his, his 'scrumpeh'... hehehe... and then, of course, John sayz to Graeme, “Git yer own, ya Scottish brute!” and Graeme fell over in shocks ahfore smacking John from thisside of the room to the other side!”  Sam had to genuinely make an effort to hold in his loud laughter: biting his lip, he managed to make his roar sound like a simple whimper, which for some reason had Gabriel pull him closer.  'Oh, right, riiiiight...', Sam thought to himself, but already his mind was detached and his inhibitions completely gone.

“N-now sssssshussssh, we're at my room, _Gaaaabriel_...”, Sam said, grinning, only for Gabriel to turn to him, nearly squishing him against the wall next to his door in the process since they'd been leaning against it casually before.  Some distant part of Sam protested, saying that it was all wrong – the amount of liquor in him, the deprivation, the fact that _he was supposed to mourn_ – but there was a _huge_ wave of nearly toe-curling pleasure that swept that voice away when Gabriel ran a hand almost casually over Sam's exposed arm, sending goosebumps in its wake and making Sam nearly crumple.

“Hey, ah, you wanna have some fun?  Will's probably enjoying summan else's attention, way he glared at me... and damn, Sammy, you look like you need it _twice_ as badly as I do.”  'That miiiiight not be an overstatement...', Sam mused, giggling out loud before he could catch himself, after which he shook his head.

“Nnnnah... From what I heard, Gabe, I'm not your type-”

“I don't got a type... unless ya count drunk an' disorderly, and you fit that to a T riiiiiight about nooooow...”, Gabriel slurred, leaning his head against the wall somewhere over Sam's shoulder, clearly noticing how much he'd drunk as well.  His breath tickled Sam's shoulder and made breathing all the harder.

“Man, Gabriel... Y-you said you love him, so... so find Will a-an' have yourself a heapa drunk fun with him.   O-or if you don't wanna find him in someone else's bed and he isn't there, t-take stupid pictures of you air-guitaring with that fireaxe of yours stark naked.  Send'em over and I'll put'em up over my bed – solemn promise to kiss your naked ass every night 'fore I turn in.”, he said, and Gabriel chuckled though he didn't even move a finger.

“Good idea – oh, hey, we could _both_ air-guitar stark naked!”

“Gabriel...”, Sam said, motioning over himself, speaking up when Gabriel took a step back in clear confusion: “Buuuurn victim?  Bandages until a co-couple of days ago?  ...I can't have ya even if I wanted, Gabriel-”  He was cut off by Gabriel nearly lifting him off his feet to kiss him, pushing him back against the wall in the process.  At first it was clumsy, mostly because the RED pyro was more than a head taller than Sam, but then, when he finally seemed to get his legs to go along and Sam threw caution to the wind and stood on tiptoe, they managed to get their arms properly around one another and their kiss grew deep, and longing, and fiery.  It made Sam's head swim from more than just fulfillment – Gabriel tasted like the straight gin they'd started drinking in the end, with just a hint of the vanilla gin's sweetness lingering in the background, but most overpoweringly he tasted like rye and something darker than chocolate, something more intoxicating than alcohol; the taste was too rich and too satisfying to give up, and that made sure that Sam and Gabriel only drew apart when they absolutely needed to fill their lungs with oxygen again, which they both did breathing heavily.

“...Fuckit, Sammy, ya french-kiss like the best of 'em.”

“Gabriel... shiiiiit...”, Sam groaned out, licking his lips.  Looking up at him revealed he had that open, vulnerable look on his face again, which meant that he was sincere about wanting her – or it could be a ruse, because Archie had said he knew how to get anyone in his bed, but Sam refused to believe the other pyro could toy with his heart like that.

However, when he was considering it, another thought hit him.  '...I can't be dishonest to Gabriel, not if I don't want him to be dishonest in return.'  Following the thought was a wave of fear that had Sam feel even more faint than he already did.  'Can I trust a complete stranger?  ...Well, obviously I _do_ , because I kissed him...'  He looked at Gabriel and bit his lip.  He'd felt _whole_ again while kissing the other pyro  - like the fire had never happened – and when Sam moved, it was due to that feeling, intensifying again when Gabriel leaned low over him once more, resting his forehead against the wall again but still looking into Sam's eyes with that look of pure, untainted longing for whatever he'd found in their kiss.

“Gabriel, there's something you've got to know...”, Sam whispered – Gabriel looked surprised but nodded as a sign that he could continue.  “...Y-you see, Sam... is an abbreviation-”

“I know, Sammy.”, Gabriel admitted, leaning in for another kiss – Sam stopped him by pressing a finger between their lips, whispering the conclusion to the sentence.

“...it's an abbreviation of Samantha.”  Silence fell between the two of them for a few seconds, a silence in which Sam became increasingly anxious and fearful.  And then Gabriel chuckled, his laughter slowly growing louder until it was overpowering and he had to let go of Sam to hold his sides.

”Haha... oh god, Sammy!  I don't think anyone knows _that_!  ...So you afraid, huh?”, he asked shrewdly – his grin was more relaxed but he didn't sound like he was all that intoxicated anymore, and Sam felt a little tense again, though not like before, not because of an overwhelming need that blocked out everything else.

“...Yeah.  I mean, I'm alone, surrounded by men-”

“Sammy, darlin', they wouldn't lay a finger on ya, they'll respect you.”, Gabriel said, and then he whispered softly and soothingly: “ _and you don't gotta worry about me_...”.  Again, Sam meant to speak up but got silenced by a kiss, and this time it took her no time at all to wrap her arms around her fellow pyro and kiss back eagerly.  However, this time they drew apart again long before they both needed to breathe to stave off unconsciousness.

“...I won't worry about you, Gabriel.  ...H-hey, uh, sure you don't wanna have some fun with me after all?  I mean, you know... you're an excellent kisser, and your hands...”  She was the one to kiss Gabriel – and the other pyro clearly wasn't loath to follow, if his pulling Sam closer was any indication – but she was also the one to pull away.  “...O-or maybe you've got objections?”, she asked lightly, and  Gabriel sighed.

“We're both drunk... and you're still healing, you're not whole, so it'd be wrong... and Will's gonna kill me...  You're right, t-this ain't good for either of us... should leave ya now...”, he admitted, intending to walk off, but Sam didn't allow him to simply disappear into the night feeling depressed.

“Gabriel, just so you know, I don't go around kissing everyone.  And I _certainly_ don't proposition everyone.  Don't forget it, okay?  Maybe when I've had my reconstructive surgery, and we're not drunk off our arses, hm?”  She half expected the other pyro to decline, since he'd mentioned his boyfriend the scout, but he smiled – a genuine smile, even – and winked at her.  He didn't nod, but he didn't shake his head either.

“...Good night, Sam, ma chère, hope you have the hottest dreams... I know I will...”  He walked off, heading back towards the door that led outside – but at the end of the hallway, he turned around and blew her a kiss as she was looking at him, causing her to blush and sigh softly before finally finding the door handle for the door and heading inside, where she found Archie still awake and looking at her as if she'd grown an extra head.

“Heeeey there, Archie!  Did me and Gabriel wake you up, you poor thing?  ...Man, he can be _loud_ when he wants to be, and he knows how to kiss like a pro...”

“'s cause he practically isa pro, 'cept he ain't gettin' paid for gettin' laid.”, Archie said with a grin – Sam paid it no mind, because the longing and the need for relief the other pyro had inspired within her returned with a vengeance and she groaned.

“...but holy shit, I wish he would've just _stuck it to me_ out there... and I really wish I didn't run into a burning building at the moment... let me tell you, Arch', nearly turning into a living, breathing chip doesn't do _shit_ for your sex life.”  She discarded her clothes haphazardly until all she still wore was her boxershorts and one persistent blue sock patterned with clouds.  “...W-well, g'night-”

“Hey, Sam?”, Archie asked, and Sam lifted her head from the pillow, looking at her room mate woozily.

“Myeah?”

“You serious?  I mean, 'bout lettin' Dante do ya?”  Sam smiled at the memory and subconsciously, her tongue flitted out to trace her lips, tasting the faintest trace of his saliva there and causing her to feel a residual tingle across the skin of her arms.  Gabriel had managed to make her feel feminine again, and he'd made her yearn for more with just a kiss and a touch... but had that been because of how deprived she was or because she genuinely was turned on by the man?

“...Well, yeah.  Maybe.  I mean, I don't know.  He's with Billy, and he seems to not like cheating on him, so...  But he-”  A yawn interrupted her explanation and Sam sank back into the pillow, mumbling another faint goodnight to Archie before sleep claimed him like a tsunami claimed the coast, bringing with it dreams of fulfillment at the hands of a tall, fair-haired giant of a man that tasted like vanilla and smelled like sulphur.

 

Gabriel arrived at a room that was, as he predicted, empty.  Billy had probably gone to Grant's room, as he did that one night when Graeme and he-  'Don't think of that now...', the pyro reminded himself, groaning when he lay down on his bed fully clothed.  The alcohol was starting to have less and less effect, he had to admit: it was even worse that he _knew_ he was starting to become alcohol-tolerant, because it meant that he was in a stage three alcohol addiction, one that usually led to heavy alcohol abuse which in turn led to system-wide poisoning and death.  It was one of the downsides of a master's degree in chemistry that he knew exactly what alcohol did to the body – dehydration because of the weak alcohol bond, poisoning because of the dangerous chemicals that could form...

However, where usually his thoughts would go to his parents and his sister whenever he thought of his previous career or anything else that fell in the category of the past, now he suddenly saw Sam's face in front of himself again.  Before she'd confessed that she was a woman, she'd looked appealing and slightly crazy, with a vulnerable side as well because of the scars and the pale skin that still clearly showed that it'd regrown recently... but after she'd said that Sam was short for Samantha, she'd seemed much more.  Not just 'appealing' but alluring, not just 'crazy' but energetic and fiery... not just 'vulnerable' but special, and wounded to the very core, and yet strong and resilient.  She was everything he was – hurt by life, looking for answers, looking for relief, looking for an end to the mental pain – and she was everything he _wasn't_ – fighting back, taking back her life no matter who stood in the way – all rolled into one.  It was clear that her body was damaged, because she sure hadn't felt like a woman to him, but even then he'd been aroused, because the way she kissed... he hadn't ever been kissed by anyone like that, like they expected that kiss to be the first of an infinite supply of kisses.  When he kissed Billy, it was usually a precursor to more, or to make up for his sins; with the others, it was purely sexual, never romantic and certainly not tender and hopeful.

'...But she's a woman!', he reasoned, sighing.  He'd had exactly one experience with a girl, back when he was still a teenager – an eternity ago, he mused – and it had done nothing but reaffirm his notion that he was into men and not women.  But Sam... 'oh, Sam isn't Adèle...', Gabriel thought with a faint smile.  The pyro had been everything the girl hadn't been: subtle, shyly and yet needfully kissing him, pressing against him in all the right ways, kissing all but her from his mind.  He hadn't even noticed how long it'd been until he'd breathed and found his lungs burning from the contact with the cool air.  '...Sam's a category of her own...', he concluded, grinning as he got back up out of his bed to take off his clothes and put on the loose T-shirt and shorts that served as his pyjamas.  '...And she tasted...', his mind wandered off again, his tongue tingling at the thought.  She'd tasted like gin, sure, but also light and flowery like rosepetals, and rich and syrupy like caramel sauce... could it be a coincidence that the taste of her lips reminded him of his favourite dessert?  Or was his mind making the connection because of how quickly his colleague had become dear to him, he mused, because he suddenly missed the feel of the minute BLU pyro pressing into his arms and his body, or the scent of her shampoo as she walked beside him.

“Ah, merde, j'peux pas dormir comme ci...”, he muttered, trying to will his mind into cooperation again – but by the time it decided to play nicely, he was convinced of one thing.  He _had_ to see her again the next day.  If only to make sense of it all, and to ensure that the alcohol really hadn't been clouding his judgement.

 

The next day, Sam awoke with a pounding headache that was aggravated by the knowledge she had to see the medic later that day for her check-up.  Of course, it wasn't so much the check-up itself that had her worried, but the fact that she'd have to tell the doctor that she was actually a woman and that the reconstructive surgery would do more than just give her back her _hair_.  On the other side of the room, the scout sat on his bed tying his shoelaces – when he looked up and instantly acquired an expression of deepest sympathy, Sam knew that she had to look just as bad as she felt.

“Ohow, man, Sam, ya look like ya got hit by a truck...”, Archie said as he handed a glass of water to the ailing pyro, who then used it to swallow her morning regime of pills.  “Uh... ain'tcha missin' some o' those pills?”

“No, doctor Harvey told me yesterday that I don't need as many pills anymore.  He quartered all of my doses so now I only have to take one pill every day instead of two in the morning and two in the evening.  Want to know what they're called and what they do?”, the pyro asked, sitting down on the edge of her bed, motioning for the scout to do so as well.  “...The green one with the cross is called Grow-a-gen, it boosts natural tissue regeneration.  That's what miraculously cut back my need for bandages.  I still have some places where the skin's growing back slower, like my behind, which is why I still need to take it.  Then there's Pulmodan, that little blue pill, to clear my lungs and my bronchi which got toasted by the fire-”

“Hey, man...  Ya burnt ya lungs?  Don't you, like, die if that happens?”, Archie asked, and Sam nodded gravely.

“Yes, and that's exactly what happened.  My heartbeat and my breathing gone for forty-five seconds until the doctor discovered only my left lung was burnt by dumb luck.  He had never been called to an accident site before and the sight of me was unsettling, so – lucky for me – he fumbled and ended up pushing the oxygen tube down my right lung, clearing the obstruction that had kept _both_ my lungs from getting shot... after that, my heartrate picked right back up with some help from the AED.  ...Anyway, with only my left lung burnt, they figured the Grow-a-gen could restore it as well, and it did so... but for the residual damage, I need to take Pulmodan some more.  The orange-and-blue capsule is called Mydolin, and it helps my liver and kidneys process the toxins that accumulated in my body due to the fire and all of the healing.  And the one that looks like a tiny lump of coal's Praevitium, it prevents wild growths in the scarred parts – especially the service exits...”, Sam finished with a dry chuckle, prompting a similar reaction from Archie.

“Hey man, I gotta lot'a respect for you, dude... and now that ya told me ya actually died...  Sam, brotha, there ain't a lotta people that'd do what you did!”

“...Thanks, that means a lot coming from you, you airhead.”, the pyro reacted with a soft grin, looking over the pills she'd laid out again.  She felt better now, she mused – the next moment, however, she winced because her head throbbed and she remembered the ludicrous amount she'd drunk the previous evening.  Still, the doctor had told her to expect adverse effects and other than the fact her headache was somewhat worse than any hangover headache she'd had before, there were no signs that her medication hadn't properly done what it was supposed to.  Wearily rubbing her forehead, she pushed out one analgesic from another package and added: “...And we add one Aspiraid for the hangover.  _Christ_ , I don't think I've had a hangover like this one in my life – do you know what Gabriel was pouring down my throat yesterday?”

“Gin, more gin – his usual creamy stuff and the hard stuff, too.  No tonic.  But man, Sam, you an' him were _all over the place_ last night, singin' kari-yokie, playin' pool, challengin' each other to do dumb things... kissin' each other in the hallway...”, Archie added in a softer tone, and Sam blushed.  No matter how drunk she'd been the night before, she hadn't forgotten about any of it, especially not about the kissing part.  All night, she'd had half-dreams about kissing tall blonde men that smelled like gasoline and tasted like vanilla.  “Hey, uh, Sam... d'you, like, _like_ him?  Gabriel, I mean.”, the scout asked, and Sam smiled.

“Well, he isn't half bad... drinks a little much, sure, but he's a good guy.”  Flashes of the man's face, looking almost hurt and innocent, came to mind, and Sam found herself smiling softly as she continued: “I'm attracted to him, yes, and he's a good guy, but... I don't know, I don't know him well enough to have an opinion already.  But I _can_ tell you he kisses like a dream, and for little ol' deprived me that was like finding water in the desert.”

“You into men too, huh?”, Archie asked, his gaze suddenly a lot more appraising, and Sam bit her lip.  This was something she hadn't figured would happen.  Of course the scout thought what he thought – as far as he knew, Sam was short for Samuel and he'd just confessed to being at least gay and possibly bi.  But then, Archie chuckled and solved Sam's problem for her: “...But well, that's just Gabe for ya – he'll just go for anyone, interested or not, and there ain't no man that don't respond to bein' kissed passionately.  Especially when ya ain't got laid for a while.  In fact, I don't think there's anyone left he ain't kissed, on either team.”  Rather than voice dissent with the scout's thought, Sam smiled and winked at him.

“Even you, then?”  Instantly, Archie blushed and stammered something that most definitely wasn't a disagreement.  But then, the thought of the medical examination returned and Sam sighed.  “...Oh man, I have to clean myself up, I get to spend _another_ hour in the medbay-”

“Again?  Man, Sam, like this ya ain't gonna have much of ya weekend left...”, the scout complained, though he grinned as he said it.  Sam nodded solemnly.

“Too true... but hey, at least it'll be over more quickly today.  Doctor Harvey said it'd be okay for doctor Steinheim to do my follow-up from now on, because I don't need the psych reviews anymore-”

“Really, ya don't?  That's great news!!”, Archie said loudly – Sam's head gave another throb, though more distant now, and the scout seemed to realize his mistake even without seeing Sam put a hand against her forehead.  “...Sorry... but it's great news, still.  Soooo, from now on ya get ya physical evals from doc Steinheim, huh?  Well, he's okay, I guess.”

“Yeah, out on the field he acts like this crazed, bloodthirsty pseudo-doctor, but in here he's always very professional.  Well, _most_ of the time.”, she added with a soft snicker, remembering the absolutely silly incident three days before, where the doctor had been doing his best to convince Yaroslav to grow out his hair, together with her.  “Okay, I'm off to the shower – see you at breakfast!”, she said finally, gathering her clothes and shower gear and heading off for the first shower she was allowed to take in over three months.


	7. Gone for now (feels a lot like gone for good)

“Will-”

“I ain't speakin' to ya, Gabe, so fuck off!”, came the loud response – the others at the breakfast table looked up, glaring at the pyro, as if he was the one that had uttered the profanity, but still Gabriel didn't relent.

“Please, Will, don't just tell me to fuck off-”

“ _I ain't interested in ya lies, Gabe_!”, Billy said more softly but with infinitely more spite in his voice, and now the pyro groaned.  How had he ended up in the situation he was in?  And what was more, how did he get out of it again?  The scout had every right to be angry, because if Sam hadn't initially turned him down, there wasn't a doubt in his mind that he'd woken up on the BLU side of the compound again  in a familiar room.  But _he_ also had the right to _explain_ that nothing had happened.  In the end, he threw up his hands and got up from the table.

“You know what, Will?  You don't wanna know the truth, you don't gotta _hear_ the truth.  Carry on believin' whatever it is ya believe.  I _know_ I didn't step out on you last night, that's good enough for me.  Je t'étais fidèle et tu m'remercie par l'haine – donc, bien, j'm'en vais.  Salut.”  He turned around and left, the shocked silence around him dissipating as soon as he entered the hallway again, where Radovan was walking back from the shower whistling and where a muffled but clearly audible argument came from the room the soldier shared with the demoman.  Sighing, Gabriel decided to head outside for a walk to clear his head – maybe, he mused, it would help with the persistent headache he'd acquired overnight.  '...Guess alcohol still has an effect on me, so maybe I'm not yet so addicted that I'm drinkin' myself to death...', he thought hopefully as he walked to the window at the far end of the dead-end corridor.  However, when he'd just opened the window to slip out, he could hear something odd on the other side of the door.  '...Runnin' water?', he thought, blinking.  'But Grant said this part of the base's deserted... empty... how can I hear runnin' water?  And... and singing?'  Over the faint sound of the running water, he could hear a soft voice singing... a familiar voice at that, too...  'Sam?  I...I've got to be hallucinating...', he thought, easing his body through the window so quickly he nearly rolled outside.

“...Merde, merde... why couldn't I use the fuckin' door...”, the RED pyro grumbled as he sat down on a stone on the battlefield, away from the window so his teammates wouldn't spot him the moment they looked out.  The pain in his elbow and knee, which felt like he'd scraped it on a cheesegrater, distracted him from his previous thoughts effectively – but then a wisp of the same sounds he'd heard inside met him from a small window at the top of the wall and he froze.  “...Quoi, j'suis en train d'halluciner maintenant ou quoi?”, he muttered.  “...C'est pas possible que c'est Sam, pas là.  I've got to be... I dunno, maybe I finally got brain damage from all the drinkin', she ain't in there...”  He could very well be hallucinating, he knew, because not only did he hear her voice now, but he also smelled the scent of her shampoo, making his fingertips tingle.  Where he'd been feeling angry at his boyfriend only minutes before for thinking he'd cheated on him, now he felt remorse for not actually going through with it.  The reasons he had against it were just as strong now as they'd been the previous night, of course: there was no way he'd do it with the both of them drunk, she more so than he, and with her still incomplete.  She'd said something about surgery the previous night, and he could guess what the surgery meant to restore, since she hadn't exactly felt very much like a woman even though she'd been pressed against him tightly.

“But still...”, he whispered, looking at his hands.  She'd made every other passion of his _pale_ in a second when compared to the fire she inspired in him – or had that been simply because she'd been new and alluring?  Unconquered?  Because she'd been vulnerable?  “...But still...”  In the meantime, the singing had ended, and so had the sound of running water, leading Gabriel to believe once again that it'd been a figment of his eager imagination.  “Damn it, I'm going over to see her.”, he said to himself, walking with big, somewhat tense strides to the door leading into the BLU compound, knocking on it.

“...Wait, wait, I'm'a comin', hold yer horses!”, came the muffled shout from inside, which made Gabriel realize he'd just kept knocking on the door instead of politely waiting after the first two or three knocks until someone opened – when Dell opened, he glared at Gabriel.  “Yeah, son?”

“J'suis désolé, m'excuses s'il te plaît... but, uh, I came to see Sammy... 's he up already?”  He caught himself just before he betrayed his fellow pyro's secret to the engineer, but the man didn't show any sign of noticing, instead simply nodding and motioning for Gabriel to stay put.

“Ah'll go get 'im.  But y'might have tuh wait, just saw 'im come from the showers, ah think...  Oh, wait – here he is.  Sam, pardner, y'got a visitor!”  Dell stepped aside to allow Sam to walk up to him – the moment he saw her, Gabriel couldn't help but grin broadly.  She looked even better now than she had the previous evening: the shower had washed away every sign of fatigue, and even though her body looked even more like a china doll in the light blue shirt and loose pants she wore that were patterned with the words 'RAVECRASHBURNREVIVE' in a flame-like texture, she also looked like a _rock_ , solid and dependable.

“Gabriel!”, she said, clearly surprised – her eyes betrayed that she hadn't expected to see him again soon, but the corners of her mouth showed that she didn't mind one bit: a brilliant, almost breathtaking smile overtook her features in a split second.  “How lovely to see you – I was just thinking about you.”

“Oh, I see...”, he said with a wink, and she snorted with laughter.

“Pfffft, not like _that_ – honestly, mind out of gutter, Dante, love...  No, I was just hoping your hangover wasn't quite as bad as mine.  I swear, if God hadn't created the analgesic, I would've _died_ over breakfast – and this lot wasn't really helpful either, making a racket like they needed to wake the dead...”, she said, motioning inside and causing Gabriel to chuckle softly.

“My hangover was manageable, merci pour ton amitié.  But breakfast... well, let's just say I tried talkin' to Will and ended up thinkin' talking to a brick wall would be easier...”, he admitted with a sigh.  “And I was thinkin' about you too.”

“Oh?”, Sam said, looking at him like she hadn't expected him to care, and he nodded.

“Can ya blame me?  I mean, we were just about ready to...”  Gabriel meant to be crude and honest but bit his lip just in time, sighing once more.  “Sam, j'te veux, et je sais que je t'intéresse bien... mais... j'dois penser à Will, j'lui appartiens.”, he said in French – he hadn't expected her to understand, much less answer, but she did, in flawless though somewhat forced French.

“J'ai pas besoin d'amour maintenant, Gabriel, c'était seulement le désir hier la nuit... mais... je comprends.  Si tu as l'amour... ne le jette pas pour moi.  J'te le pardonne.”

“Mais sérieux, tu parles le français ou quoi?”, he said, utterly dumbfounded, and Sam nodded.

“Mais toi... bilingue?  C'est rare, ça.  D'ou-”

“J'suis Canadien, né près de Quebec mais après ça ma mère a reloqué – quand mes parents se sont séparés, presque trente ans passé...”, Gabriel said, and now Sam clearly looked disbelieving.

“You're not over thirty, Gabriel, you're closer to my age... aren't you?”

“No, I'm thirty-five.  But you, you're younger, aren't you?  Twenty-three?”, he asked, smiling when she nearly nodded.

“No, twenty-four nowadays.  ...Well, don't _you_ look great for thirty-five...”, she admitted, motioning for the hallway.  “Do you wanna come in and talk?  I mean, not that I don't like talking while standing, but my knees are still a little sore and-”

“Well...”, Gabriel said, hesitating.  He probably should head back to his own side to try and talk to Billy again, to try and talk things through with his lover.  But then he caught a whiff of the scent of Sam's shampoo again and he shrugged.  Billy hadn't exactly treated him very courteously, and the fact that he hadn't even allowed Gabriel to say he was sorry stung: was it really so wrong to feel upset with the scout?  “...Okay.  Thanks, Sammy.”

“I can't talk too long, though, I've got to meet with doctor Steinheim for another physical exam at two-”

“Aw, Sammy, darlin', if ya need your body checked out, I won't mind doin' the honors-”, Gabriel started teasingly, and Sam chuckled.

“I'll bet you won't mind, but Billy would, huh?”  Then, as if sensing that the mention of the scout didn't improve his mood any, she held up her hands to plead for mercy and winked at him.  “...I'll be sure to remember that, though – if Billy ever dumps your ass, I'll be sure to pick it up, okay?”

“T'promets?”, Gabriel said lightly, and when Sam laughed but didn't make light of her words, his heart soared, so much so that he didn't even try to crack a lewd joke anymore.

 

If Sam had felt nervous before, when doctor Harvey came to base for the medical examination, it was nothing compared to the sheer nerve-wracking tension that crept into her entire body now.  Then again, she mused, this wasn't the doctor that already knew all about her; this was a man she still had to fight alongside, a man she'd had to trust with not just her life but her very dignity.  She'd seen the list of tests he had to perform, and a few of them were invasive to say the least.  Yet Sam had to admit that she'd been far more nervous before Gabriel showed up: her fellow pyro had talked to her about Billy and how the way the scout treated him had caused him to feel, after which Sam had provided him some tips on how to get the scout to talk to him again, tips that Gabriel seemed to have taken to heart if the speed with which he ran out again was any indication.  She also hadn't heard shouting come from the RED side of the base, so she guessed that there was at least no argument brewing.

“Zam?”  The voice of doctor Steinheim roused her from her thoughts, and she instantly smiled again as he ushered her inside.  “Also, denn...  Please, haff a zeat.”  Feeling the blood rush to her cheeks in a shy blush, the pyro sat down, biting her lip.  She felt like running outside again until she remembered what Gabriel had said to her only half an hour before – _'no one's gonna think any different about you, Sammy, hun, unless you want them to, an' if they do, give me a sign and I'll black a couple of eyes for ya' –_ and the remark doctor Harvey had made the day before – _'you trust the man with your life on the battlefield, why not trust him now?'_.  “Now, before ve start, is zhere anything you vould vant to know?”

“Doctor, I only need to ask one thing... and that is that you promise me – that you _swear_ to me – that you'll abide by doctor-patient confidentiality.  Nothing you learn here today leaves this room, unless it's in sealed communication to my doctor or the Administrator-General.”, she asked, causing the medic to nod, seemingly taken aback.

“Natürlich- I mean, vhy off course I can, Zam... I aszure you, I vill be very profezhional... but vhy vould you feel zhe need to ask-”

“Wait, do you mean you didn't look at the list of examinations doctor Harvey gave you yet, doctor Steinheim?”, the pyro asked slowly, and when the medic shrugged, she felt slightly apprehensive and fearful, afraid about the man's reaction.

“I zought I could haff a look vhile you changed, Zam... ist es so important?”, the medic admitted with a soft shrug, causing Sam to mentally groan.

“Well, you be sure to do that – I'll go change, you look over the list, otherwise we're going to have a problem when you have to actually _perform_ the exams.”  She nearly ran to the screen, a fact that caused her to blush as she shed her clothes.  Now all she could do was wait for the man's anger at being lied at.  She heard the sharp gasp the medic uttered, but then...

“...Z-zamantha?  Warte, was?!  ...Aber diese Testen, es stimmt... no ozher explanation...”  Instead of rage, she could hear confusion and disbelief in his voice, followed by something that got her heart to falter even worse than anything else could've achieved: “...Ach, Zam, you sought zhat you needed to hide?”

“...I... yeah.  I did.  Think so, I mean.”, the pyro said as she reappeared, stark naked.  “That's also the reason why I didn't want you to do the exams in the first place – well, that, and the fact that I needed psych reviews until doc Harvey told me I won't be forced to have my brain picked again yesterday.”  The medic looked her over – even if she knew it was professionally motivated, she still blushed and hid her unease by hopping up onto the examination table.  “So, uh... this is kind of awkward...”

“Vell, yes, but ve shall try to ignore zhat.”, the medic said – his choice of words and the soft tone in which he spoke them made it crystal clear to Sam that the man felt more than a little out of his depth as well and that he nevertheless would do as he was required, which in turn motivated her to resolve to do the same.  “...Okay, zhen... just lay back and spread your legs, zo I can check zhe damage to your privates.”  Pushing away the residual wash of discomfort, Sam did as requested, and wasn't surprised to find the man true to his word: methodically, he checked her nethers and remarked on the damage he saw.  “...Zhere seems to be no permanent damage to zhe skin, and zhe shape of your genitalia ist okay still.  Okay, now comes zhe _painful_ part, I am afraid, I vill haff to insert zhe small camera in your urethra-”

“Doctor Steinheim, after all I've been through, I think I can bear a little added discomfort just fine.”, Sam remarked – the medic looked at her in surprise before nodding with an encouraging smile and taking the equipment he needed.  The pain was somehow sharper now that her skin had healed and the burning sensation of shoving something where nothing was supposed to ever be shoved didn't fall into the background of aches she'd had back then – but the doctor once again calmly and methodically checked the image he saw on the screen of the unit he held before withdrawing the camera again, leaving Sam with a slight pressure on her bladder, like she needed to pee.

“Zhat seems to be in order – no growzhs, no scars, all healzhy tissue...  Next on zhe list is an internal examination – or vould you like to relieve yourself first?”, he asked, clearly intending to give her some reprieve, but Sam shook her head.  If she went off the table now, she probably would run back to her room.

“No, let's get this over with, doctor Steinheim.”

“Okay zhen... well, zhis might be slightly cold, so do not be alarmed...”, the medic said as he took out the duckbill instrument used for gynaecological exams and lubricated it; Sam rolled her eyes but didn't speak up.  Her own ob/gyn had always spoken the same warning, and after a while it'd become so tedious that Sam had taken to saying as she lay down on the table 'that inventing a warm-feeling surgical gel would make a million pounds someday'.  Then, the medic inserted it – clearly, he had said so, but Sam had been too lost in thought to hear – and she gasped.

“Holy mother of _Christ_ , that's cold!”, she said loudly, blushing slightly in shame before sighing.  “...Give me a second... _bleh..._ ”

“Do you vant me to give you some more time to azhjust?”  Sam shook her head, willing herself to calm again and then relaxing again, which was the sign for the medic to continue his examination.  “...Vell, you are in order internally – no scars, no growths, no damage.  Zhough it would be a good idea to wait vith having intercourse, zhe skin at zhe edge of your vagina ist still tender and it vould not do to get an infection.”  He removed the instrument again, looking her over.  “Zo doctor Harvey haz asked me to report on how much of zhe reconstruction is needed – down zhere, I zhink we can agree zhat it more zhan okay considering zhe circumstances, maybe a bit of zhe reshapink...  As for zhe rest, I do not have to say... but I assume zhey will be reconstructing-”  Before he could say it, Sam hastily nodded and bit her lip in slight embarrassment as she spoke.

“Yes.  Yes, they will.  ...I used to be well-provisioned – well, I was never a skinny girl, and I used to have a D-cup, but, well... there was too much damage... I didn't even know until they brought me out of the chemically induced coma and I hugged my older brother a little more tightly than I thought I could.  But yes, they'll be fully restoring my femininity in two weeks – three rounds of surgery, of which two sessions are cosmetic.  Until then, no one will ever know I'm a woman-”

“You do not need to fear zheir reactions, Zam.”, doctor Steinheim said soothingly, causing the pyro to sigh and shake her head.

“I wish I could believe that.”

“Ich verspreche es dich – I promize, Zamantha, zhe ozhers have nozhink but zhe respect for you.  Respect, and admiration for your skills.  If you do not wish zhem to regard you as zhe object of desires, zhey will not.”  It was so close to the words Gabriel had spoken to her, both the day before and only hours prior to that moment, that Sam chuckled despite herself.

“...Well, I know there's two people I won't have to worry about, at the very least.  ...You, doctor, and Gabriel.”, she elaborated when the medic looked at her in surprise: when the surprise only seemed to double at the mention of the other pyro's name, she sighed and smiled.  “He knows – we got _very_ drunk last night and, well, he made advances that I wasn't too unresponsive to... and I leveled with him.  And he told me exactly what you told me – that the others have nothing but respect for me and that he wouldn't view me any differently at the very least.  At which point he kissed me again, mind-”

“Now zhat is interestink...”, the doctor said, looking faintly embarrassed at the mention of the RED pyro – Archie's words of that morning came to mind and Sam knew that Gabriel had at the very least tried to lure the medic into his bed – but then he elaborated: “...Aber I zought herr Dantan vos only attracted to men.  He haz never looked twice at any of zhe waitresses at zhe bar, vhile plenty of zhe ozhers have.  And he haz been wizh zhat scout of hiz for nearly two years now.”

“...Yes, well, there has to be a first for everything, and apart from those waitresses there's not exactly a lot of women in your lives, is there?”, Sam said tentatively, to which the medic replied with a soft chuckle.

“Zhat is correct, natürlich.  ...But zhe point is zhat you do not haff to be vorried about zhe team, Zam.  Zhe men will look at your restored body vhen you return, off course, but if you tell zhem zhe first day you return zhat you are still zhe same Sam that fought alongside zhem – that you just happen to be a woman...  Zhey are no longer just your colleagues, Zamantha, but zhey are deine Freunde.  Well, zhat is to say, perhaps zhree of our number vill look at you and hope to get more zhan friendzhip from you...”

“I know.  Archie, Arsène, and Theo.  Well, I'll just have to make it clear to them that I'm not interested in any of them.  But I'll have to level with at least one of them, too, because I'll have to share a room with Archie.”  The pyro sighed, looking at her hands and pressing her fingertips against one another, feeling the smooth skin underneath them as the silence ticked on – finally, when she felt some measure of calm again, she spoke up once more: “...So, were those all the tests?”

“...N-nein... zhere is one more, but it is... vell, it is a bit unorthodox...”

“Hm?”, Sam said in confusion, intending to sit up – but the next thing she knew, the medic was once again probing her insides, only this time he wasn't looking at the actions of his fingers, even though they were precise and clearly aimed at melting her from the inside out.  “D-doctor Steinheim...?”, she said in a half-moan, her body springing into overdrive after such a long period of deprivation.

“Es tut mir leid, Zamantha...”, the medic answered, keeping his eyes averted from her form and from his hands, even if his thumb was now very methodically drawing circles that were slowly driving her out of her mind.  “Just... forget zhat you are in a medical bay... forget zhat it's me doing zhis... Zhink of anything, anyone, else...”  And suddenly, the previous evening came to mind: Gabriel kissing her, his hands on her arm, the feeling of fire in her heart and the pit of her stomach... and the way he tasted like bread and like the sweetest kind of confectionery... and how it'd feel to have him peel away her clothes so that he could touch more skin, kiss more than just her lips... and suddenly Samantha had to bite her lip hard to keep in the _loud_ moan as her body shook and her insides clenched and unclenched around the medic's fingers.  After that, however, the silence in the medbay was absolute save for the hurried breaths Sam had to take when becoming aware of her body again and the somewhat shaky in- and exhales from the doctor himself as he tried to calm himself, pointedly looking at the opposite wall.  His voice betrayed that unease even more when he spoke: “...I am zorry, but doctor Harvey needed to know zhe extent of zhe nerve damage in your private parts...”

“Well, I _think_ I'm in the clear there... holy moly, I feel like I ran a _marathon_ in a heartbeat...”, Sam admitted before sighing.  “...When I see doctor Harvey again, I'm giving him a piece of my mind – what's he _thinking_ , asking you to do something like that?!”

“Yes, I vill be zure to tell mein colleague your, uh, objections vhen I tell him my own.”, the medic admitted – Sam, meanwhile, had slunk back behind the screen to put her clothes on again – when she reappeared, the medic stood over by the sink, washing his hands and scrubbing them vigorously.  When noticing how the man seemed intent on scouring away his _skin_ in the process, however, Sam walked over briskly and took the brush from his hands before very gently holding them under the water.

“Don't overdo it, doctor Steinheim... you _need_ those hands in working shape.”

“Aber sie fühlen...!”, the medic started – but then, when looking at her look of sympathy for a second, he nodded and added meekly: “Du hast recht... and I sink you are entitled to call me Ziegfried...”

“Siegfried, then.  Look, this is... this happened, and now it's in the past.  You have the results doctor Harvey needs to prepare for my surgeries.  About the rest... I won't speak, and I won't even think...”, she said delicately, causing the medic to catch on to the hidden meaning of her words – 'let's just forget about this altogether' – and to nod softly in assent, something which he voiced the next moment as he walked back to his chair, motioning for Sam to sit down on the footstool next to it.

“Indeed, and I vill not, eizher.  ...Now, Zam, I do haff to zay you should conzider telling zhe ozhers about your being a woman before you depart again, zhat way zhe shock vill not be too great.”  A thousand objections instantly came to mind to Sam – but the look of honesty on the medic's face had her forget all of them in favor of a nod.

“...Are you saying this as my friend or theirs?”

“Zhose are not two mutually excluzhive zhings, Zamantha.”, the medic offered – and that decided the matter.  Sam already trusted the men she fought alongside with her life, so she could trust them with her security as well.

“...I won't leave without telling all of them, okay?  But I'll only tell them what the reconstructive surgery is for the day I depart, at breakfast.  I don't... I don't want things to become awkward _now_ , not when I'm doing so well and am really starting to enjoy my new job.  Archie, though... I'll tell him tonight.  He deserves to know, he's going to have to share a room with me and he's going to be affected most.  ...Okay, so, see you at dinner?”, Sam asked eagerly, getting up from the footstool – the doctor chuckled and nodded, which had Sam walk briskly to the door leading back into the hallway, only to turn back to Siegfried when he spoke up one last time.

“...Zamantha?  ...Juzt... sei vorsicht, okay?”

“W-what do you mean?  What should I watch out for?”, she asked, but the medic had retreated into the apothecary, leaving her to exit feeling confused and worried.  Who did the medic want to warn her for?  Archie?  One of the others from her team?  Gabriel?

 

“...I've got ta be angry at you a lot more, Gabe, it makes ya _fierce_.”, Billy admitted, and Gabriel could only groan something incoherent in reply.  After he'd left Sam, making her late for her appointment with her team's medic – something he'd apologised for profusely but she hadn't seemed to mind – he'd gone back to his side of the compound, taking one of his many books about chemistry with him to the toilets, where he locked himself in one of the stalls and read it cover to cover in about an hour.  He didn't know why he'd done so, since he'd promised Sam that he'd talk to Billy the second he'd get to his room, but the look on the scout's face had been priceless when he came in, picked up the book, and left again without speaking a single word.  As a consequence, when he went back to the room an hour later, the scout had nearly assaulted him.  Not that he minded, he mused with a soft grin, contentment blanketing his senses.  His joints ached, his head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton wool, and breathing hurt – not to mention he thought it'd be a bad idea for him to show his face at dinner, or risk even Grant showering him with disdain, because he'd been _extra loud_ of course – but he felt like he could sink into his bed without regrets.  “... _Dude,_ ya squeezed me so hard in the end, I can see ya _fingerprints_ fuckin' _everywhere_...”, the scout said with little to no hint of being upset about the fact, and finally Gabriel found the energy he needed to move so he lay on his side instead of flat on his face.

“Yeah, well, you sure weren't complainin' back when I did the squeezin'.”

“Still ain't complainin', ya ass...  Uh, so yeah, I s'pose I can forgive ya for _not_ sleepin' with Sam.  's Gotta be a first, though... new team mate, drunk off their ass, you all over 'em, and they _say no to ya_...”, the scout remarked, and Gabriel sighed.

“Yeah, well, ma vie c'est tout du 'première fois', je n'en est pas surpris.  ...S-sam is a nice guy, though, so I'm a li'l glad we didn't.  Glad it ain't awkward.”, Gabriel admitted, causing Billy to sigh.

“What, ya think he said no to ya 'cause he's a nice guy?”, the scout said, and now Gabriel chuckled.

“Nah, he said no 'cause he's still healing from burns down there.  _Heavy_ burns, too-”

“Yeah, I talked ta Archie while you an' Sam were happily outdrinkin' each other – dude had burns ovah his entire body, only some weird miracle shit got 'im ta heal up with all new skin in days.  But the reason he wouldn't tell me – said somethin' 'bout 'that's up to Sam to tell ya'-”  Gabriel sat up in the bed, the sheets falling around his waist and the air feeling cool on his sweat-slick skin, thinking about the way Sam had looked when they were talking earlier.  She'd looked so fragile, but when Gabriel had laid a hand on her wrist as she looked a little down, she instantly smiled at him again and her skin radiated off heat like a miniature electric blanket.  And her bones had felt as immobile as steel.

“...Sam's strong.”

“Yeah, no kiddin', I would cry like a baby if I got burnt even half as bad as he did.”

“No, Will, t'comprends pas... Sam is _strong_.  He didn't just say no to me, he said no to me in between _nearly eatin' off my face_ , he was so desperate for it.  Just 'cause it wouldn't be right – to you, to me, to h-him...  I wasn't as strong before he said we oughta reconsider – after that, yeah, sure... he'd reminded me I was gonna hurt you...”  The scout nodded and sighed, stretching himself out beside Gabriel and grinning at him.

“Ya sound like ya got a lot'a respect for Sam.  's Good.  Maybe this means 's one person on the two teams ya won't screw things up with.  It ain't exactly like ya got a lotta friends, Gabe – and ya can use one.”

“Hey, and what's Grant, then?!”, Gabriel said somewhat annoyedly, though he relaxed when Billy nuzzled his shoulder somewhat affectionately.  “...Yeah, yeah...”, he continued, his voice soft mostly due to the fact that he saw Sam's face in front of his mind's eye again, smiling at him and laughing, causing _him_ to laugh along lightly, _feeling_ younger and more energetic.  “...Et bien, I suppose Sammy did pace my drinkin' a little... and it's nice talkin' to h-him...”  But then he remembered something Sam said the previous night - _'Gabriel, just so you know, I don't go around kissing everyone'_ – and he looked at the scout, remembering his thoughts back then.  Usually when he kissed Billy, it was meant to entice him into bed, or to plead forgiveness for one of his many sins – and when he didn't kiss _Billy_ , it was meant to get the other person on board with his plans of debauchery... but Sam had spoken words that resounded deeper inside of him than even the feeling of satisfaction from having his way with his lover reached.  She'd brought back all of those ideals of love being a flood of emotions, not just physical fire but an earthquake inside the heart; the ideal of every kiss being the first of an infinity, of every touch being both the incitation of hunger and the means to fulfill it; the ideal of love being _more_ than just 'want' and 'need'... the ideal of the love he'd lost when life had betrayed him in the most cruel way imaginable.  For him, love had been pure need for such a long time...  Lightly, he placed a kiss on the scout's lips, surprising the other man for a second: then, Billy tangled a hand in his hair and held him in place, only letting him go when they started to sweat again due to how close they'd been pressed together.  “...hey, Will, why d'you even stay with me, huh?”, he asked, and the scout sighed.

“Well, it ain't ya charmin' personality, Gabe... but... well, I dunno.  Ya got somethin'... somethin' that makes me feel awright when I'm with ya.”, he admitted, causing Gabriel to nod softly.

“Well, for me, it's... kind of the same.  Ya made me feel good again.”  He pushed aside his further thoughts with relative ease, allowing the warmth of the afternoon and the proximity of his lover to lull him into an easy sleep.  After all, if he showed his face at dinner, he probably would get lynched.

 

“...Archie?  You still up?”  The Sunday dinner had been a lot easier to make, but unfortunately a lot more messy and thus a lot harder to clean up after.  Tavish had fallen asleep in his bowl and, when roused, had started grabbing the first things within reach and tossing them onto the table in defense – he'd spattered gravy and chunks of meatloaf all over the dining room, and it had taken Sam, Yaroslav, Siegfried and Dell two hours to completely clean the floor and all of the furniture.  And after their cleaning, Sam had wanted to celebrate a job well done by having a little dessert in the form of blueberries and cream – she'd ended up sharing the blueberries with half of the team, since the engineer, the medic, the heavy and the spy had all been interested in the whipped cream she'd made by hand and she'd felt in a sharing mood anyway.

Unlike now.

“...Sam?  Man, sorry, I was a li'l absorbed in my game just now...  Ya needed me?”, he asked, smiling, and the pyro nodded.

“Yeah.  I, uh, had a little talk to doctor Steinheim today, about my surgery.  And, uh, I promised him to tell you about it.”  She expected the scout to be surprised, or even curious, but he simply nodded, and she blinked.  “...Well, not so enthusiastic, Archie...”, she said somewhat sarcastically, and the scout sighed.

“I... I was worried 'bout ya, so I asked Arsène ta snoop in on ya first exam-”

“You what?!”, Sam yelled, unable to mentally process the concern in the scout's voice due to the incredible anger she felt.  The spy had spied on her?  How?  Had he seen her naked?  Had he been laughing at her misfortune, or disgusted by the scars and the lack of anything that made her look feminine?  Had he heard the part where doctor Harvey spoke about Michael?  However, his thoughts and his rage were swept from his mind when Archie spoke again.

“B-but Sam, brotha, ya gotta understand, I did it outta worry for ya, an' so did Arsène!  Don't be mad at us for carin'!”

“I'm not mad at you for caring, it's just... _Jesus_ , Archie, I've been worried out of my mind tellin' anyone!  I've been beating myself up all week about how I had to fucking _lie_ to all of you 'cause I thought you'd _kill_ me or think you could...”

“Look, Sammy, maybe ya need ta worry about that from the others, like Jane an' Theo, but not from me an' Arsène, dude.”  It was that last word that showed the sentiment better than the rest of his sentence, Sam found.  Anger completely forgotten, he looked at the scout in disbelief, repeating it.

“'Dude'?”

“O-oh, sorry, I didn't think 'bout it... but Sam, ya know this ain't change a thing!  You're still the crazy pyro that torches people for a livin', an' ya still the crazy fuckah that got drunk with Gabe yestahday an' sang 'Burning down the house'!”  Sam allowed herself to relax again, the scout's words and the tone in which he spoke them sinking in finally.  The scout didn't care.  He didn't _mind_.  He still regarded her the same as he had before.  So maybe, just maybe, the others of her team could be counted upon to react similarly.  “I don't care that you're a chick, an' Arsène doesn't care-”

“Heh, and Gabriel doesn't care either.”, Sam said, finally allowing herself a smile – her statement seemed to puzzle the scout.

“...Ya told Gabriel?”  Now Sam snorted and nodded.

“'Course I told Gabriel, you dolt, he had his tongue halfway down my throat in the hallway, I wasn't about to startle him to death when he pulled down my pants-”

“Pfeh, like Gabe would _care_ , he only evah does the givin' an' not the receivin' – 's long as ya have an ass, he's gonna be down with it.”, Archie said somewhat dismissively, and Sam glared at him, upset about the way he abused the other team's pyro.  Gabriel was bad, yes, but not _that_ bad: after all, he'd walked away from her even though he'd clearly been just about ready to strip them both down, not to mention he'd genuinely seemed to be nothing but respectful and caring to her that morning when he visited.

“Gabriel's my _friend_ just as much as you are, Arch, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't smack-talk him behind his back, or I might have to _physically persuade_ you.  ...Okay, you know, and Arsène knows – anyone else?  ...And how exactly did our charming French spy snoop on my medical examination?”, she asked, her tone leaving no doubts about her intentions to freely maim the spy if the answer wasn't to her liking – Archie paled and nervously scratched the back of his head before speaking up.

“Uh, I think he bugged ya clothes with a mic back when ya came to change.  He heard what ya were talkin' about, but he ain't seen nothin' if that's what ya worried 'bout.”  It had been, but Sam would die rather than admit as much.  “...A-an' to be honest, it were a couple'a things that got him lookin' into ya story.  Like ya doctor callin' you 'dear' all tha time... an' the mention of 'Progyna', that sounded like some kind'a hormone treatment...  When he looked it up together with me, this aftahnoon, we kinda felt like idiots for not lookin' it up before – Sam, brotha, ya told me 'bout what happened, but ya ain't said it was _that bad_ , man!  I saw those pictures, 's a miracle ya came out alive!”  Sam sighed, shaking her head to dismiss the images suddenly assaulting her.

“...I... guess I don't like talking about it a lot.  Not even to you, or Gabe.  I mean, it's still too... too close, too painful.”

“Sam, dude, when's it ever _not_ gonna be painful?”, the scout asked, and Sam pondered his words in silence: after a while, Archie returned to his game, leaving her to head back to her desk, taking a sheet of paper and a pen and starting to write.  She left a line open at the top, because she didn't yet know who she was writing to, but below that she wrote freely.

_'Not a day goes by in which I didn't wish none of it all happened.  But since yesterday, somehow, I figure not all of it is bad.  I made friends here, I have a job I love again, I'm so much closer to Damien, I'm finally free of the mother that constantly put me down... maybe in time I'll get over the pain.  Maybe in time I'll stop seeing Michael's face, and the way he looked at me when we said our goodbyes that afternoon.  The way he asked me if I loved him, the way his eyes nearly teared up when I said that simple, truthful reply that I'd always love him.  Always.  I still do, despite how much he hurt me just jumping out of life.  I can never stop loving the brother I would've died for.  I can never stop loving the brother I wished had lived while I had died._

_'I understand him now.  How pointless and hopeless it has to have seemed.  How painful living was for him.  He transferred his pain to all he left behind – my parents, my brother, and me.  We're left not only with burns and scars, not only out of a house and money... we're left trying to make sense of it all.  Or almost all of us are left with that.  In some moments I understand it perfectly.  How his calling me up earlier that week was part of his plan.  It must've been, because we went all out – the ice cream, the movies, the walking and talking... I had never seen him enjoy it all so much.  And now, in retrospect, I know that was because they were his dying request.  I was his dying request.  One last afternoon of pure fun in the presence of the one that loved him unconditionally, in the way our mother never could.  His goodbye was a farewell for him.  He must have stashed gasoline away in his room for days before that, because how else would he manage it without drawing our parents' attention?  And after that... I guess it was easy for him.  To douse the room where he'd cried so many tears and had so many nightmares; to douse the house that had never represented a happy home to him.  To douse himself, the flawed man that could not repair himself.  To light up a match.  I imagine his hands shaking at times but I know that's just wishful thinking.  Michael was good at hiding his thoughts for the world, and so Michael would've been good when striking the spark that'd consume him.  Steady hands, steady breaths.  I can't imagine his pain as the flames tore him away from this cruel world – all I can imagine is the pain I felt, in so many different ways, as the flames tore him away from_ me _...'_ Sighing, Sam looked over the letter before adding one last sentence at the bottom of the piece of paper.

_'Watch over him up there; make sure his pain is soothed, because if anyone deserves heaven, it's the ones that battled for so long to keep up living until finally accepting defeat and death with open arms.'_

She looked at the letter in her hands and took a decision: writing an address at the top before folding it neatly, she got up from her chair and turned to Archie.

“Hey, uh, I'm just going to take care of one last thing, okay?”, she admitted – the scout didn't look up from his game, muttering a vague reply while his eyes kept darting over the screen.  'Probably in the middle of another fight...', Sam mused as she walked to the window at the far end of the corridor leading to the separate medbay and shower area which had been installed just for her.  If she opened the door this late at night, she would probably wake up a few people, which would lead to awkward questions – and that was the last thing she needed.  But a window...  It opened smoothly, and she slipped out without making a sound, walking a short distance away from the base until she reached a level, remote spot where she knew no one came during their daily battles.  There, she stacked a circle of stones together, pinning the letter underneath one of them... and then she lit it.  The moment the flames were big enough to make it clear that all of the letter would be gone in no time, Sam turned her back on the fire and walked back to the window, slipping inside again and closing it.  She didn't watch the distant orange glow.  As the paper with her deepest thoughts turned to smoke, she felt herself relax enough to fall asleep, perhaps even a dream-free sleep this time.


	8. Here I am

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (guess which song the title is meant to represent - there are two options. Guess it right and you'll get a prize...)

The next morning, Sam awoke at the crack of dawn, taking another shower and reveling in the feel of the warm water hitting her skin.  It felt even better that day than the day before, when she'd used tepid water just to be on the safe side: now, all the aches from her joints seemed to be washed away by the artificial downpour, and the soap seemed to smell less like dish detergent and more like actual _soap_.  Once briskly toweled dry and dressed in easy clothing so they wouldn't hinder her in the fireproof suit, she walked to the breakfast room, intent on making herself a few nice sandwiches with jam; but when she got there, she was distracted from her initial plans by the large stack of letters laying on the table, neatly sorted into piles.

“G'mornin', Sam, laddeh...”, Tavish said, appearing from the kitchen for a second before heading inside again, causing Sam to walk up to the doorway.

“Good morning... uh... what's the deal with those letters?”, she asked, and the demoman looked at her in mild surprise, pulling his milk off the stove just as it started to bubble.

“'s Mail day, laddeh, di'n anay-un tell yeh?”

“No...”, the pyro said somewhat shyly, causing the demoman to smile back at her apologetically.

“...Ah, righ', yeh were nae here las' week until Mun-dai late...  Mun-dai morn' is when the mailman comes, an' we git ahr families' mail an' get tah send ahr ohn...  Go 'head an' look, laddeh, there's mail fer all'f us!”

“Hm, don't think I'll get much...”, she admitted – after all, who would be sending her mail? – but to her surprise, the engineer headed over to her with three envelopes.

“Sam, this here's your mail.  I reckon y'got one letter from RED, though, so that don't count...  But still, two letters, that's a good haul fer someone on their first week in.”

“Who would...”, Sam started, opening the first envelope, which was oddly unstamped, to find a short note written in a neat handwriting she recognised from her prescriptions – a note from doctor Harvey.  She read it out loud mentally: 'Dear Sam, I have received doctor Steinheim's notes by e-mail and am glad to inform you that your revalidation can be cut short.  You will only need to be absent from your job for two weeks at the most.  Also, doctor Steinheim has informed me you're using pH-neutral soap.  That is good until after the surgeries, at which point, I'm happy to inform you, you can switch back to your usual brand.  Finally, he has told me about your resolve to inform your team the day of your departure: I can only applaud that initiative.  Your teammates may not be gentlemen by a long shot, but they have accepted you in their midst and your gender will surely not have as big an impact on that as you fear.  Allow me to wish you a pleasant two weeks until we meet again.  Best regards, doctor Benedict Harvey.'  The second, stamped, envelope was a bit thicker, and the handwriting was slightly slanted – when she realised who the letter was from, she felt a jolt through her heart like a bolt of lightning.  Opening the envelope, she sat down on the sofa.

'Dear Sam, I hope your job is okay.  By now, doctor Harvey will probably have told you of Michael's diagnosis already – and of mum and dad's second attempt to have you collocated.  I am so sorry you had to go through all that, Sam.  I've called them as soon as I found out, telling them in very choice words how I felt about my own parents treating my sibling – their child – as filth.  As you can guess, mum threw a right fit and swore never to speak to me again, slamming down the receiver.  Truth is, Sam, I suddenly am not certain that dad is all that angry at you as he is overpowered by mum's anger.  He sounded soothing on the background, and I swear I could hear him say that she was overreacting again...  I beg of you, Sam, if you can find it in your heart... understand them, too.  I know they have hurt you deeply, and I know forgiving them is perhaps not possible, but if you understand their pain, perhaps you might not hate them.  As for me, I'll look for your letters, your phone calls, and your visits with joyous anticipation.  Know that you will forever have my love and support...  Forever your loving brother, Damien.  PS: If it is okay with you, I'll come visit you in the hospital after your surgery.  You were a gorgeous young woman before all this happened, and you'll surely be just as stunning again!'  The pyro sighed, her eyes suddenly conspicuously moist – wiping them surreptitiously, she turned to the unstamped envelope with an untidy scrawl reading her name.  Inside was a short note and a dozen photographs, all of which made her blush violently.  Archie, who had just walked in the door, noticed  her sitting in the sofa and sat down next to her.

“Good mornin', sunshine Sam.  ...What's this... Ohow, ain't he a charmah...”, the scout said as he looked at the pictures as well, chuckling when he saw who they were of and how much clothes said person had on.  “I told you Gabe's one crazy fuckah...  I get how he got Billy ta take 'em, too – he's as bad as they come but man, if he ain't hot when he wanna be...  But how'd he get Billy ta _part_ with 'em?  An' those poses... man, howzat even physically possible?!”  Sam gently pried the photographs from his hands and put them back in the envelope, blushing.  Archie was right about Gabriel being attractive: despite being over six feet, he didn't look at all gangly or stretched like most tall men did.  Instead, he looked just like a lot of the men she'd known intimately: fit, proud of their bodies and their physical strength, but not overly muscular.  But she shook her head again, musing how she was bound to find anyone attractive after almost three months of near-constant pain and deprivation, added to another three months of being cut off from any form of social life due to having been absorbed in the job hunt.  But instead of allowing the slight embarrassment about Gabriel's nude photographs to overtake her, she pushed herself to an easy smile as she spoke.

“I made him a promise and I intend to honour it – these go up over my bed and I'm kissing his ass goodnight every night, literally.  ...But maybe he does deserve something in return-”

“Heh, maybe, yeah... ah well, I suppose I'll help ya out then.  Gabe got Will ta help, you need at least a wingman, Sam.”  The scout patted her shoulder softly, causing her to grin; but then he withdrew his hand again and reached for the envelope, stating: “Wait a sec, there's a note too!  Wait, lemme...”  He took the note out of the envelope, scanned it quickly and then chuckled.  “Ohow, man, he's a piece of work!  'Heya Sam, hun, hope your doctor visit was okay.  If it wasn't, tell me and doc Steinheim's guts are served au flambée for lunch.  I remembered your promise – you'll be kissin' my naked ass goodnight for a long time yet.  Better get used to the taste.  But don't worry, I promise ya, every weekend we'll wash it away with so much liquor ya brain might get pickled alive.  Lookin' forward to meet you on the battlefield, mon amie attrayante et dérangée – I wanna light you up like a match any way I can.'  Eww, _gross_ , he added a _smiley_ here, like, a _wink_.  'Love, kisses, an' a hot fuck, Gabriel D.' - ohohow, he sure knows how to charm ya, don't he?”

“...Mmhmm...”, Sam said, nodding dreamily.  The scout could read every lewd message he wanted in there – which probably was true also – but to her, it spoke mainly of worry, and of the connection they'd made seemingly effortlessly.  He said he'd kill their medic in battle if the doctor's visit didn't go exactly as hoped, he'd remembered everything they'd said while drunk, he promised more of the drinking together – which meant more than just the _drinking_ – and despite all the lewdness, he'd called her attractive and said that he wanted to light her up 'any way he could', which would also mean more than just set her on fire on the battlefield or set her ablaze with need like he had that Sunday night.  All in all, it was no surprise that she grinned.  “...Well, maybe we'll need to get Gabriel a matching set by this Saturday – what d'you say?”, she asked Archie, who groaned theatrically.

“Sounds like torture for me, Sam... but guess ya gonna need someone ta help ya give Dante jus' what he needs.”

“It takes a lecher to think like a lecher, huh?”, Sam said, and Archie chuckled, looking around the dining room before speaking in a more hushed tone to her.

“Yeah... plus Gabe ain't nevah looked twice at a woman.  Now that he knows ya a chick, he might not like ya pictures.”  Sam meant to protest, to say that two of their kisses had followed when the other pyro had known, but then she remembered that neither of those kisses had had the fire of that first kiss and she felt a little more unsure.

“...Sure, okay.  Just not too over-the-top or I'll get brutally killed by Billy every step I take the week after.”

“Oh, sure, _now_ ya get worried 'bout ol' Jealous Loverboy, after ya nearly _banged Dante_ -”

“...I am not sure I vish to know.”, came the offhand comment from their right, and Sam looked up to see their medic standing next to her, already wearing most of his gear save his lab coat, figuring he could spill milk from his breakfast over his vest without it showing up on camera.  The pyro smiled broadly at the man.

“I won't tell you, then.  Did you need me, doctor?”

“Yes, ve should talk in private for a zecond...”  Sam duely got up and walked off outside, ducking quickly into the medbay with the doctor, who gave her an encouraging smile when they stood in the cold, tiled room.  “...I got zhe note from your doctor.  He zays zhat your revalidation-”

“Can be cut short, yeah, I got a note as well.”, Sam said, causing the medic to smile.

“Ja, I vigured azh much... oh, is zhis his note?”, he asked, motioning for the envelope Sam held in her right hand, causing the pyro to shake her head.

“These are, uh, pictures Gabriel took for me.  They're... not really meant for public viewing.”, she admitted with a soft grin, and the medic sighed, pretending to be exasperated but managing to genuinely sound like a sternly admonishing father.

“Now, Zamantha, I vill not haff you misbehave wizh Gabriel, of all zhe people.”

“Oh, now come on, Siegfried, Gabriel isn't as bad as people make him out to be, he's just... he's got problems and he just deals with them in ways people don't always like.”, the pyro said, and to her surprise, doctor Steinheim nodded.

“...Zhere were only zhree of our team prezhent vhen herr Dantan joined RED – und zhey were me, herr Conagher und herr Doe.  He vos not always zhe man you haff zeen.  Our own pyro at zhe time, herr Lander Yansson, made sure zhat he got zhis way.  He introduced herr Dantan to zhe easy escapes of zhe alcohol and zhe meaningless intercourse.  Zhe pyromania... it tied zhem togezher.  ...But zhey veren't drinking or sleeping togezher all zhe time – zhey alzo had zhe _deep, philozophical_ talks and zhe _pyrotechnical_ discuzhions...”

“W-what happened to this Lander?”, Sam asked, though she knew the answer.  It'd taken BLU four years to find a new pyro specifically because they'd been searching for one that wasn't a pyromaniac, probably because her predecessor and Gabriel had made each other worse.  Doctor Steinheim's answer didn't surprise her, therefore.

“...He vos killed.  He had zhis shed on zhe battlefield vhere he und Gabriel kept zheir drinking stashes – one night, he lit a fire nearby and zhen left it unattended to drink.  Zhe fire spread to zhe shed and... und er wurde lebendig verbrannt...”

“...Burned alive...”, Sam said softly, shaking her head.  'No wonder Gabriel buries himself in liquor or in the arms of anyone he'll find willing rather than light a fire... he must be terrified the same could happen to him...'

 

“Gabriel, son, what happened to yer leg?”, Grant asked, sounding a little worried when the pyro limped into the dining room that Monday morning.

“...What?  Oh, nothin'.  Just...”  Gabriel finished his statement with a shrug.  The truth of it was that he'd twisted his knee the wrong way when he'd gotten Billy to make polaroid photos of him being a fool, and a _naked_ fool at that.  Yet the photos had been more than sensual, and Billy knew that much.  They'd been _pure_.  They'd shown his soul: the different kinds of crazy he could get.  Most of them were of Gabriel posing with his Axtinguisher, some with his gas mask on, but there had been three or four of them that were a lot more indicative.  Him holding his lighter in opened hands towards the camera.  Him surrounded by various bottles, laying on his bed as if drunk – he'd wanted to drink in some courage before that shot, but Billy had said that he wasn't to touch the one full bottle among the heap.  Him with his back turned to the camera, with his suit and gloves laying behind him like shedded skin off a snake.  And the one he'd been _adamant_ that Sam received: him sitting on his bed, the sheets around his waist, looking at the window, his right hand on his knee and his left arm and the tattoo on it almost put on a pedestal.  It'd been harrowing to contemplate those pictures, and even though his knee still smarted from the pose he'd taken for one of them, it was a far cry from how he'd shunned the scout's comforting company the previous night, instead insisting on bearing the brunt of his feverish dreams alone.

Not all of the dreams had been nightmares, too.  Ever since he'd kissed Sam, she'd featured in his dreams in one way or other, and that night had been no exception.  He'd dreamt that he was burning like Lander had, trapped in a burning building with no way out... and then, just when he'd resigned himself to his fate, Sam had appeared, holding him tightly and whispering in his ear 'let's burn together, Gabriel, let's burn out like candles side by side' after which the flames had fallen away and the dream turned to-

“Son, yeh feelin' okay?”, Grant interrupted his thoughts, his tone and the wrinkle in his forehead betraying annoyance, “I jus' asked yeh a _third_ time if'n yeh oughta stop doin' things yeh're jus' too old for.”  The man's short fuse didn't fail to spring Gabriel's temper: when he raised his voice, the others in the dining room looked up from their breakfast, startled by his volume in the tender hours of the morning.

“I _know_ I ain't fuckin' _twenty_ anymore, old man, so can the fuckin' moralizing crap an' speak your goddamn mind!”  He stomped out of the dining room again, intending to go back to his room and change and then _sulk_ or _drink_ until he'd get excused from battle to get a rough wake-up call from the Administrator.  When he reached his room, however, he simply sank down on the bed and looked at the camera, his anger disappearing in an instant.  Instead, his thoughts turned to Sam, his fellow pyro, and whether she'd seen the pictures yet.  He didn't doubt that she liked them – regardless of his preferences, hers had been pretty much voided by months of deprivation and the compounded desire that was a result, so she'd take anything she could get her hands on – but... would she know what she was seeing when she looked at the deeper ones?  Would she see his tattoo and run a finger over it softly?  Would she see the one where he was supposedly drunk and feel sorry for him?  ...Would she see the one where he held out the lighter and try to take it from his hands, like he wanted her to?

He knew Sam was no Lander; not only because Sam was short for Samantha, of course, but also because she was a burn victim that had turned to the job she had, and because she had turned him down even when they both wanted nothing more than to sin together in every possible way.  He knew she didn't need fire the way he did, even though she hadn't offered any insight into her background.  All he knew was gossip, and tidbits she _had_ shared, and drunk confessions.  But she had been so open to him.  She had been very clear in her refusal, but she hadn't said no to him – or at least, she had kissed him again and told him she didn't just kiss anyone.  She had basically offered herself to him.

And in return, he'd offered himself back to her.  And that scared him more than he'd been able to voice, in dream or in reality, to anyone.

“...Gabe, son, c'n ah come in?”  Grant had the sensibility to knock before entering – he carried a plate with three syrup-covered pancakes as a peace offering of sorts, and Gabriel sighed before walking over to him, taking the plate from his friend's hands wordlessly, allowing the engineer to speak on: “Ah'm sorry fer upsettin' yeh, son, but yew know all ah want's t'see yeh okay an' in fightin' condition fer another week of fightin'.”

“I'm fightin' fit – maybe even more so 'n last week, old man.”, Gabriel said, this time saying it affectionately before stuffing a sliver of pancake dripping with syrup into his mouth, speaking as he chewed.  “'M guhmn'-”

“Finish chewin', Gabe, son.”, Grant said sternly, waiting patiently for the pyro to swallow his properly chewed food.

“I'm gonna be fine on the battlefield – put some ice on my knee last night 'fore I went to sleep, an' it's already a lot better.”

“Good, 'cause the last thing I want is t'see yeh gettin' offed by Sam from BLU 'cause y'injured yerself doin' somethin' crazy-”, Grant started, and Gabriel chuckled, shaking his head.

“Oh, trust me, Sam's the last one that's gonna off me today.”

“So, Sam, huh?  Billy was worried 'bout yeh night 'fore last.”, Grant said delicately, which caused the pyro to sigh.  His friend couldn't have been more clear if he'd spoken bluntly.

“Nothin' is going on between me and Sammy, we were just... drunk, and... and _drunk_...”

“Son, y'ain't foolin' me none.”, the engineer said, sitting down next to Gabriel with a sad shake of his head and an equally dejected sigh, and for a while the only sound was made by Gabriel enthusiastically devouring his breakfast of pancakes.  But as soon as they were gone, the pyro turned to Grant to find the engineer looking at his burnt hands.  Quickly, he put his empty plate away and tucked his hands into his pockets somewhat self-consciously, letting the silence between him and his friend and supervisor grow and billow like toxic mist until he couldn't take it anymore.

“...Look... Grant, it's... it's somethin' not even _I_ understand, okay?  I just... we kissed, an' we talked yesterday mornin', and I took some pictures for h-him 'cause of some drunk promise.  Most of those pics were like ya'd imagine-”

“Son, too much information, dang it.”, Grant said, though he didn't sound as upset as he usually did, which got Gabriel to continue.

“-but some of them were... _brutally honest_.  I kind of bared my soul in 'em.  'Cause Sam should know if we're gonna be friends.”

“Gabe, friends don't proposition friends.”, the engineer said, and Gabriel meant to reply to that and say that he'd propositioned Sam before he'd made up his mind to be her friend instead, but he halted.  Instead, he sighed and spoke in a weary, somewhat sorrowful tone.

“Grant, me an' h-him, we're just friends.  Nothin' more, I swear.  In fact, S-sam stopped us before anythin' happened we couldn't take back, said s-somethin' meaningless shouldn't come between me an' Will.  You got nothing to be worried about.”

“If yeh say so, son... if yeh think so...”, Grant said, picking up the empty plate as he walked to the door; once he stood in the doorway, he added: “Put on yer gear, son, we're leavin' in thirty minutes, don't wanna be late fer the fightin'.”  It left Gabriel in confusion.  Grant seemed to be convinced that he and Sam couldn't be friends, that their little escapade of that Saturday would get between them somehow – did he worry that there was a possibility that he'd get thrown off the team?  That he would end up hurting his colleague, or she him?

“...Fuck, what's _he_ know... I'm Sammy's friend, an' that's that.”, Gabriel spoke to the silent and empty room before taking his gear and starting to put it on.

 

“...Oh god, what was I thinking, offering to return Gabe's favor?”, Sam told herself that Friday evening as she sat in the bedroom she and Archie shared.  The scout had not only offered to help her with her idea of taking similar pictures of herself for the other team's pyro, but he'd also said he had a good idea to make her gift 'even more awesome'.  Right now, he was collecting a few things from their engineer that he'd claimed were vital to his plan – normally, Sam would be skeptical about the plan, but the scout had sworn to her that it wouldn't be either dangerous or over-the-top sexual.  His exact words had been 'eww, Sam, brotha, like I'd wanna see that!' - it was clear to Sam that the scout regarded her as a kind of sister or cousin that he wouldn't find hot.  No matter if he _did_ find her hot.  It hadn't exactly been subtle at times to wake up and find the scout looking at her sleeping form with clear longing, or to have the scout conspicuously excuse himself when she'd changed clothes in the evening.  But he refused to mention any of it and seemed to be dead set to ignore the feelings she gave him that didn't fit his idea of their friendship.

“...Okay, it took some convincin', but Dell finally coughed up tha goods!”, Archie said as he entered, grinning broadly as he gave a burlap sack to Sam, filled with a variety of items that clanked together when she took it.  “Oh yeah...”, the scout said as he closed the door behind him, “...if old engie asks ya what ya needed these for, ya were researchin' battle strategies with me, okay?”  The scout blushed, which was a clear indication to Sam that he felt bad about lying to the engineer, and she patted Archie on the back.

“No worries, that's exactly what we'll be doing for the next, uh, hour or so...  Okay, before we start... are you _sure_ you'll be able to manage, Arch'?”

“Sure, Sammy!”, he said, sounding moderately convinced of his ability to keep his mind on the matter at hand – though he still felt the need to add softly: “I think I can manage seein' a naked broad.”

“I'm not just a naked broad, Archie, I'm the naked broad sleeping in the bed next to yours.”, Sam responded, causing her friend's cheeks to color crimson and his eyes to dart to the floor.  That, in turn, caused her to laugh softly.  “...Okay, I'm sorry, that was kind of mean of me, wasn't it?”

“Not mean, Sammy, but _true_.  I... I'm just a guy an' no matter how much I like ya an' respect ya, Sam, I'm'a gonna keep havin' trouble-”

“No need to finish that sentence, Archie, I _know_ what you mean and believe me, it's not like you're unattractive, but I _choose_ not to.  ...Anyway, let's just get this over with... so, which 'props' did you get me?”, she asked, and finally the scout seemed to regain some manner of composure again as he took the burlap sack from her, removing the items from it and laying them on Sam's desk neatly.

“Oh, all kinds'a shit!  You got ya own gear, an' I got mine, so I ain't got no pyro or scout stuff in here for ya... but I got a ski mask an' an old disguise kit'a Arsène's, a hard hat an' a wrench Dell could spare, an eyepatch an' a sticky grenade launcher, complete with a few defused stickies... Jane's old army helmet – he got a promotion last year or so, an' he wanted a new helmet – an' his old rocket launcher, without tha rockets...  Uh, what else?  Oh, yeah, some ammunition belts like tha ones Yar' wears; an' – you're gonna _love_ this one! - doc Steinheim's old syringe gun an' one'a his doctor coats, an' one of those li'l weird head mirrors some doctahs wear... Theo's 'Crocodile Dunce-dee' hat-”

“I happened to like that movie.”, Sam said with a soft grin, to which Archie replied with a roll of his eyes.

“Yeah yeah, keep thinkin' it but never say it ta Theo's face, he's a creep an' he'll think ya like him or some shit like tha'.  ...So, his hat an' one'a his kukris that went blunt.  ...An' ya can borrow my cap an' earpiece, an' my bat!”, he finished, sweeping his own gear from his bed and putting it on the desk with the rest.  Sam looked them over and nodded.

“Might as well start with my own gear...”  She stripped down to her underwear, which also disappeared from her body after a last glance at Gabriel's pictures; then, she put on her gas mask, though she held it pulled up so her face wasn't obscured, as well as her fireproof gloves before picking up her flamethrower and holding it just like she would on the battlefield.  Clearly the pose was good, because suddenly Archie turned beet red and muttered something that sounded like the happiest profanity the pyro had ever heard.

“I-I-I think ya n-need a li'l... I dunno... g-grime on ya or so-somethin'... or soot...”, the scout offered – Sam didn't protest the idea and quickly rubbed her flameproof suit over her cheeks and then along her chest and shoulder, so that the fine layer of dust and ashes rubbed off on her and streaks of grey appeared among the scars her skin was riddled with.  “...G-great!”  Archie's voice had gone squeaky now, causing a little remorse in Sam until he muttered: “M-maybe I should be takin' _two_ shots'a each, ju-just ta be sure?”

“Yeah, _sure_... but only if both sets go to Gabriel or you _burn_ the bad ones.”  The way the scout paled told Sam enough, and she nearly giggled as the scout only shot one photo of her.  Quickly, they worked their way through all of the gear – she tried to mimic the promotional posters she'd seen of all of the job classes as best as she could.  Then, finally, she put away the syringe gun and dropped the medic's old coat on the ground and she looked at her friend, who seemed to be none the worse for wear after having to sit through the picture series.  “...Uh, let me wash up a little and then... maybe a few more...”

“Wait, really?”, Archie said, sounding like he'd been struck on the head with Gabriel's Axtinguisher.  “B-but Sammy, I don't think-”

“Please, Arch'...”  Her voice was soft – but she knew full well that she'd have to bring up the rest of the photographs if the scout still wasn't convinced, and she didn't want to do that.  Somehow, she had the feeling that the others of her team weren't supposed to know, let alone see, Gabriel's fragility.  Fortunately, the scout sighed deeply and picked up the camera again.

“So... uh... what kind'a shots ya still wanna give to sicko Gabe?  I mean, ya _know_ he's just gonna jerk off to ya pictures-”

“Not these, Archie, of that I'm sure.  ...Okay, hang on a second...”  She'd dug up the item she'd been looking for from the drawers of her desk in the meantime – one of her old hazmat bags she'd forgotten.  Inside it were some of the less-stained bandages from the previous week, which she quickly wrapped around her chest.

“Eugh, that looks just as disgustin' as it did before...”, the scout complained, and Sam shushed him.  Then, she sat down on the ground, on her knees, and looked at the ground.  “...Okay, like this...”, she said.

“Why-”, Archie again started, only to grow quiet when Sam sighed deeply.  Her shoulders shook slightly, she found, so vulnerable did she feel at the moment – when the camera clicked, she just looked  at Archie.

“C-can you take a picture of me falling backwards onto my bed?”, she asked, and he nodded, poising the camera to take the shot – when it came out, the pyro had to admit that he had a good eye for what she aimed to achieve with the photographs even if she hadn't said it out loud: the picture had been taken just at the moment she'd opened her eyes to brace for the impact with the mattress and it exuded a kind of fear that stung in her heart, so familiar and painful was it still.  “...One more, Archie, just one more.”  She walked to the bookcase that she'd occupied, next to the doorway, and took out a book on pyrotechnics with images of fireworks on the cover: then, holding the book in front of her stomach, she held out a hand at the camera and smiled – Archie didn't need to be told to take the picture.  As soon as he held the polaroid out to her, she sagged and peeled off the bandages, throwing them away before putting on her pyjamas with curt gestures.  It felt like hiding, and it probably _was_ hiding, but at that moment she just wanted to distance herself from everything until she felt less exposed.

“...Uh...”, Archie stammered, clearly torn between running to the nearest toilet to get some much-needed relief and staying to talk to her about what clearly had her feeling less-than-amazing.  In the end, when she spoke, Archie hadn't moved an inch, though he'd been fidgeting non-stop.

“Not all of Gabriel's photos were lewd... so I figured he deserved some similar photos of me in return...”

“...Hell, yeah, he does...”, Archie finally admitted – either he had guessed the meaning of her words, or he hadn't and he just thought she was being magnanimous, but she didn't care either way.  “Mind if I-”

“No, go right ahead.  Pictures here, though.”, she said sternly, causing him to drop two of them back onto the stack on her desk sheepishly.  However, when he did so, he lingered for a second longer to look at her kindly – showing he was once again treating her like someone near and dear to him instead of just as an object of lust – and speak consolingly.

“...Gabe's damn lucky ta have a friend like you, Sammy...”  As the scout was gone, Sam dug up the four pictures of her fellow pyro that hadn't been the least bit sexual from the locked drawer of her desk and sighed, replaying the scout's words in her head as she stared into the sorrowful eyes of Gabriel Dantan as he held out his hands to the camera.

 

That Saturday, at five thirty, when the first members of BLU walked through the door, Gabriel Dantan, pyro for RED, still had the same drink in his hands as he'd ordered at four fifty-seven, when his own team had arrived.  It was unique, but he didn't pay the fact any heed.  He simply didn't feel the need to cloud his judgment with alcohol, not when he wanted to talk to Sam about a thousand different things all at once.

“...Gabe, yeh sure-”  Grant's voice betrayed worry – the taller man wasn't insensitive to the man's obvious care for his well-being, but at the moment it was hard to show any appreciation for the fact since it was the engineer's fifth question in about as many minutes.

“Grant, would ya _fuck off_ an' leave me wastin' away nervously in goddamn peace?  Merde, j'te _jure_ , encore une question et j'te casse le tête...”, he said, not as loudly as he wanted but still more forcefully than he intended, causing the engineer to take a step back in shock and a few heads of the men sitting at the table to turn his way.  “ _Je te jure,_ mon ami... Grant, you're a great guy, but try askin' me once more if I'm okay and I'm breakin' your fuckin' nose.”  He looked at the entrance to the bar again – and sure enough, there she was, walking between Dell and Archie and talking to the both of them.  He rose from his barstool, an appropriate expression of relief on his features – Billy looked his way with a little distrust, but he was willing to bear another ten hours of complete silence just for the feeling that coursed through him like a freight train.  However, before he could speak up in greeting, she beat him to it.

“Gabriel!  You aren't getting drunk alone today!”

“... _Now_ I'm fine, Grant.”, Gabriel admitted with the broadest grin he could manage without irreversibly damaging his facial muscles, walking towards Sam to clap her on the shoulder amically, a gesture she mirrored readily.  “...Oh, man, Sammy, I never noticed how damn _boring_ these guys are before-”

“Hey, now, Gabe, ah object tuh tha', y'ain't never _talked_ t'us.”, Grant said, winking at Sam as she chuckled and adding quickly: “An' that's his firs' glass, he ain't touched it fer thirty minutes-”

“ _Grant_ , fous l'camp!”, Gabriel said emphatically, cracking his knuckles to add extra urgence to his message; fortunately for all involved, Dell pulled his colleague along to the table, together with Archie, giving Sam and Gabriel a little moment of seclusion from the group as they didn't pay attention to the two pyros still standing by the bar.  “...He's right, though.”

“Not thirsty, huh?”, Sam said shrewdly – he smiled softly and shrugged the next second, having to fight hard not to just grab hold of the woman and _kiss_ her for being such an excellent friend.

“...Guess so, yeah.  Maybe I was just waiting for you, Sammy, darlin', 'cause I didn't wanna get drunk all by myself.”

“You're such a crappy liar, Gabriel – it didn't stop you before, from what I heard.  But I'm glad it stopped you now, at any rate.  Then we can enjoy our liquor together, huh?”  He meant to raise his glass to that in a toast until he remembered that she didn't yet have a glass, and so he spoke up to the bartender.

“Three double-shots of vanilla gin – and don't pretend ya don't got any left, I saw 'em cart it in earlier today, that excuse ain't fuckin' working _two_ weeks in a row.”  The bartender muttered something that was most likely a profanity, but he walked to the back, allowing Gabriel to turn to Sam again, finding his colleague holding a white envelope.

“Got a little something for you.  Please don't open it in here, because if anyone catches sight of what's in there I'd _die_ -”

“Your life's in good hands with me, Sammy, darlin'.”, Gabriel said, putting the envelope in the chest pocket of his jacket and patting it.  “Right here.”

“You trying to charm your way into my bedroom, Dantan?”, she asked lightly, almost jokingly if it weren't for the way she didn't smile, and he gave her a crooked grin in return.

“'s it working?”

“You're about as effective as doctor Rudolf over there was at shooting syringes full of morphine last Wednesday.”, she admitted, causing Gabriel to chuckle softly.  Sam had found his team's medic that day, for once without Radovan's eternal company because the heavy weapons expert had been keeping Grant safe in his stead.  The medic had started shooting his syringe gun at her – a foolish decision because he was a terrible shot, and all but three of the shots had missed.  Still, right after the medic had dropped to the floor completely incinerated, Sam had died when he'd nearly cut her in half with his Axtinguisher, the morphine having weakened her already.

“Hey, three of those syringes hit – are ya sayin' 'keep trying and you'll get somewhere?'  'Cause hell, I don't mind keepin' it up.”

“Pfeh, you'll have to keep it up for a very long time if you want me to fall for you, Gabe.”, Sam said, effortlessly returning his little pun, causing his heart to nearly ache with contentment.  Outwardly, however, his grin just grew more lopsided and his voice softer.

“...Oh, you'd better believe that I'd keep it up _forever_ for you, darlin'...”

“Wouldn't want it any other way, Gabriel.”, she answered back, taking the first of the three glasses from the bar and sipping it before looking at him and carefully licking a stray droplet of gin from her lips, making his throat feel _parched_ all of a sudden.  “...So, shall we _indulge_?”, she offered, and he nodded, downing his first glass like a man that hadn't drunk for days.


	9. Hope on deliverance

“Y-you guys... I think... I think I have to go back to base now... I can't tell my lefts and my rights apart anymore!”, Sam said loudly – checking her watch, she saw the two hands pointing out that it was either half past one or five past six, and she redoubled her efforts to get Archie and Billy to release her from their grip.  It had started going downhill when the two scouts joined her and Gabriel and they'd been stupid enough to start buying both of them shots, after which the scouts had begun to drunkenly drag them into their arcade machines. “Please, c'mon, I don't think I can think-”

“Ya sorry 'bout that vanilla gin already?”, Billy said, laughing softly, and Sam laughed along before she could really help it.

“No, not me, but Gabriel might be sorry about it.  He's had his hand on my bottom for a good hour now, and not to feel me up.”, she said, casting a look backwards to her fellow pyro, who looked back at her with his expression wavering between helpless and lewd, and she rolled her eyes.  “...he's now half an' half about it...”

“Aw, Gabriel, don't feel up Sam!”, Billy said loudly, with little to no annoyance for either pyro – he was more drunk than Sam was, because she still realized that Gabriel wasn't supposed to feel her up, and _she_ was in turn definitely more drunk than _Gabriel_ , who tried to remove his hand from her rear half-heartedly.  “...'E-eyyy, you wanna go to tha otha bar?”

“Sure!”, Archie said, grinning so broadly his cheeks probably would get stuck that way, and Sam sighed.

“Not me.  I have... something... in the morning... I don't remember what it was, but I have something, definitely.  Oh yeah, my medical check!  I have to be washed, brushed, groomed an' prettied up to appear before doctor Steinheim so he can look at all the scars.”

“Sucks ta be you.”, Archie said seriously, though he laughed loudly the next second.  “S-so you goin' back ta base, or what?”

“Y-yeah, 'course!”

“I'll go with, make sure Sammy the firebomb here doesn't dud off in the shrubs by the roadside an' freeze over in the night.”, Gabriel said, pulling her against him – again, something he was nowhere near drunk enough for, Sam mused, though she let him do so without a single protest – and smiling at the two scouts.  If Billy had any objections, he wasn't voicing them at all; on the contrary, he seemed to wave them off quickly, clearly eager for playing more arcade games with Archie in the bar next to the one they were at.  “...Ready to go, Sam?”, Gabriel asked, and Sam nodded.  He didn't sound all that playful – instead, he sounded nearly _serious_ as well as longing, and she smiled his way.

“Yep!  Now, let's go... oh-oh...”, she sang as they walked out, waving to the three or four people of their teams still present.  The two of them kept singing as they walked back, arms wrapped comfortably around one another for support and just because they could – or that was the explanation Sam gave for the hand she had settled on Gabriel's shoulder, where she could feel every movement of the muscles of his back, at least.  By the time they arrived at the BLU side of the compound, they were singing a mournful ballad together.

“...And the wind howled throoooough the willoooooows... oh, hey, this is home.  Gabriel, shhh, stop singing or we'll wake up everyone-”, she admonished her friend, only for him to snort and pull her closer.

“Pfeh, _let 'em_ wake up, that way they can hear at least _someone's_ havin' fun tonight.”  He walked along inside – Sam didn't need to invite him along, he seemed to guess her thoughts, which was probably also why he followed her into her room.

“...God, your room's a fuckin' _mess_ , Sammy.”, he said, causing her to sigh.

“Archie's side of the room's a fuckin' mess, _my_ side is okay.  ...Didn't take you for a neat freak, Dante, my man...”, she admitted, and he grinned.

“Have to have a couple'a surprises up my sleeves apart from scarred hands...  S-so, uh, Sammy, I wanted to come along to tell you about those photos-”  Sam smiled, suddenly feeling heavy and sinking down onto her bed, barely noticing how Gabriel followed suit.  It was clear from the look on her friend's face that he was being as sincere as he ever could be, and she answered in kind.

“You don't have to say a thing.  The photos told me all I need to know.  I saw a man reaching out for help, for compassion, for understanding... I saw a man that hates his pyromania just as much as his team does, probably _because_ his team hates it so much...  But above that, Gabriel, I saw _you_.  I saw how fragile you are, how hurt.”

“It figures that you'd wanna try an' heal me.”, Gabriel said, and Sam found herself laughing lightly.  So that was why her friend had wanted to come along?  To tell her not to bother?

“Clearly you didn't look at my pictures yet.  ...Gabriel, sure I want to try and heal you, somewhere deep down... but don't you see?  You're not the only fragile, hurt person on both teams now.  I... got burnt trying to save my brother from committing suicide by burning our parents' house down, and I failed.  That fire burnt me, in every sense of the word.  So yeah, I want to try and heal you, Gabriel, you _big dunce_ , but above all I just wanna find a way to keep you from breaking that doesn't break _me_.”

“...I know.  I mean, about your brother.  Not that I was spyin', but... I overheard when ya told Archie, last week...”, Gabriel admitted, startling Sam.  She had heard his footsteps outside of the respawn room, she realized, but back then she thought it was someone else from her own team that had come to get them for the new start of battle. 

“You knew?  ...And you didn't mention it to anyone?”

“My team's engie, because... well, let's face it, the story of your brother _shocked_ me-”

“Because of Lander?”, Sam asked, and now her surprise was clearly mirrored on Gabriel's face.  “...Doctor Steinheim told me about him.  I'm so sorry about that, Gabriel.  And if you want... if you're ever afraid you're getting _bad_ -”  She didn't have to finish her sentence, nor could she, because somehow she ended up kissing her fellow pyro, softly on the cheek at first as he did the same to her, but then their lips met and they kissed with a passion that made the previous week's fire pale in comparison.  And this time, all she could do when she felt Gabriel's hands on her bare arms was _whimper_ into the kiss because he was making her want him so easily, it was like kindling firewood on a summer's afternoon.  One spark and she was burning.  “ _Gabriel..._ ”, she muttered when they parted for air, her breathing a little faster and a little more desperate for oxygen, and the other pyro scooted closer to her before speaking.

“...You ain't drunk like last week, and Billy's goin' home with Archie, I'm bettin'... and I _know_ you're as good as healed-”

“But... but _I'm not whole yet_ , Gabriel...”, she stammered, suddenly feeling self-conscious, only for him to look her in the eye with the most needful, open look he'd ever given her and to speak in a tone that was ten times as strong.

“You're everything I'd ever want ya to be, Sammy...”  She couldn't help but kiss him again, and again, vaguely aware of them laying down onto her bed and of the scent of Gabriel's deodorant as he lifted his shirt clumsily over his head – it smelled like a forest after a thunderstorm, with a hint of something minty – and then his hands pushed up her T-shirt and ran back down her sides and she gave up any reservations she had about Gabriel and her finally, finally ending up together.  Her own hands ran over Gabriel's shoulders, his upper arms, his chest, the bandage around his left upper arm underneath which the tattoo was – he pulled her hand away, muttering something against her lips that she didn't catch but already knew – and then back to his face, running over his cheeks to tangle in his hair so she could steady herself as she kissed him without worrying about air.  “...Merde, Sam...”, Gabriel groaned, letting his hand wander to her hip so he could pull her against his body more tightly – when she wrapped one leg around his and kissed his breath away, he shivered in her hold and repeated the statement breathlessly as soon as they parted: “ _M-merde, Sam..._ ”

“Gabriel... w-what are you... even doing... to me...?”, the pyro managed to utter in between short gasps when Gabriel applied his lips to the side of her neck, still holding her so close to his own body, as if afraid she would run away or slip between his fingers – it was all she could do to run her hands again and again through his hair and over his shoulders and arms.  “ _Gabrieeeelll..._ ”, she moaned when he scooted back up again, managing to end himself up on his elbows over her – but just as she meant to pull him down to her to kiss him with all the passion just being close to him had accumulated inside her, the door to her room opened and Archie and Billy appeared, kissing just like she and Gabriel had intended, hands all over each other.  She and Gabriel looked up, startled, and Billy and Archie froze, looking wide-eyed at them before bolting out of the room.  And just like that, Gabriel gave a muffled whimper of frustration and moved away from her, leaving Sam feeling just as annoyed at the circumstances as he'd just voiced.  Yet Gabriel didn't run out after his lover, nor did he get out of the bed altogether: he just sat on the edge, his shirt in one hand and the other pressed against his forehead.

“Sam... I...”, he started, causing her to sigh and nod: however, when he continued, she was surprised by his statement.  “...I'm sorry... I messed up-”

“Gabriel, no, you didn't mess up anything, it's _Billy and Archie barging in here_ that-”, Sam started, getting up as well and straightening her T-shirt quickly while speaking, only to be stopped by her friend grabbing her hands and holding them still to allow him to interrupt her.

“It's a good thing that they barged in here... Sam, last week, you woulda been just someone else I used, and i-if you hadn't said no to me...  I like you – an' I mean I genuinely _like_ ya, not just that I find ya hot – which I do-”  As his sentiment devolved into a jumble of statements, Sam squeezed his hand that held hers and smiled at him, interrupting him in turn.

“I like you, too, Gabriel, you're a wonderful guy... and I'm attracted to you as well, because as hot as you think I am, you're ten times as hot as I am...”  She looked at Gabriel quietly, allowing him to finish the statement he'd set out to utter when he'd first interrupted her, which he did with a rueful smile.

“...I just don't want _sex_ to stop us bein' friends.  No matter how much I want ya, I... don't want you to start hatin' me like the others do.”  When she intended to answer him, to say that it wouldn't come between them and that she wanted him just as much, he added quietly: “Don't say you'd never hate me, and don't say it wouldn't come between us, Sammy, you know that's wishful thinkin' at most.”  It was a sound argument, she found, so sound that she heaved a sigh and nodded.

“...You know, now I'm starting to wish you were butt-ugly so I could keep my hands off you at least...  Billy's a lucky man-”

“Pfeh, yeah, sure, right about now he's _bound_ to be.”, her fellow pyro said drily, causing her to pat him on the shoulder somewhat consolingly.  He seemed to sense the question on her mind, too, because he added: “Well, after all the shit I put him through, it was bound to happen.  Him steppin' out on _me_ for a change.  Hell, I can't even be jealous of Arch'.  After all, I did 'im too.  ...Sam, promise me you'll say no next time too?”

“Now, Gabriel, you know _that's_ wishful thinking as well.  I can't say no to you.”, she admitted.  Then, however, she lightened the statement with a soft-spoken teasing remark: “...You'll see when you finally take a look at those pictures...”

“Sammy, now that's just _unfair_!  If you one-upped me, I'll have to-”

“-you'll have to _deal with it_ , Dantan, mon cher.”, she said with a smile, grinning just like he did.  The tension between them wasn't gone, far from it, but for now it was far from their minds to act upon it.

 

In the middle of Monday night, Gabriel woke up with a start from another bad dream about his mother, this time featuring her descending from the heavens with tearful eyes and bright white wings to come give him a hug and tell him that it'd all be okay, only for her to burst into flames the moment she touched him and die again screaming in pain, screaming 'the sin' over and over, as if that was the reason for her to burn.  Quickly rubbing his fingers over his cheeks, they came back wet as he suspected; yet when he looked over to the other bed, he found Billy still fast asleep, meaning he hadn't cried out, just... cried.  The afterimage burned in his brain, as if it had been imprinted on the back of his skull, and he shivered despite himself.  Was he really that much of a sinner that he didn't deserve to sleep anymore?  Was he really hurting his mother by his behavior?  ...Did his sinning ways mean that the angel he so often prayed for was out of his reach forever?

“...Merde...”, he cursed, punching his pillow for good measure.  His previous nightmares had taught him that sleep wouldn't come easily anymore, and that he was better off trying to do something rather than sit awake all night trying to entice sleep to return to him, because if he closed his eyes, it'd only lead to more nightmares, and more gruesome ones at that.  “Merde de diable... Demain c'est un jour de bataille, j'ai besoin de mon sommeil...”, he muttered to the silence surrounding him, getting no response except for a rumbling snore from his boyfriend.  Groaning softly, he got up out of the bed, picking up the first book that he got his hands on in the darkness and stumbling outside with a minimum of noise made.

The hallway was deserted and only dimly lit from the moon outside, and the concrete floor felt cold under his feet, but Gabriel automatically wandered to the dining room, where he could read without disturbing any of the others since it lay at the end of the compound.  Hastily, he closed the door behind him when he reached his destination, flicking the light switch and flooding the room with bright artificial light.  It made the dining room look even more deserted than it already was – in the day, with the clatter of plates or the soft noise of the television set in the living room corner, it never felt as desolate as it did now, with nothing but cold air and his own presence filling it.  “...God, Gabriel, could ya be any _more_ depressed?!”, he admonished himself, turning to the book in his hands in the hopes of at least having some good reading material.  But in the darkness of his room, he'd picked out a _children's_ book.  The only children's book he owned, 'La petite fille au chocolat et le prince du royaume de miel'.  It was the story that his mother had read for him more frequently than he could remember, every page of the book already imprinted in his little brain before it'd mastered the skill of reading – and after that, he'd devoured the letters himself, reading it again and again until the story was so familiar he could recite it from the top of his head.  “Eh, bien, c'est à dire... à peu près...”, he mused.  Some of the more difficult parts of the story had always kept confusing him.  “But I ain't readin' this.  Not after that fuckin' nightmare.”, he said, looking the cover over again, running his thumb over the stain right over the author's last name.  '...Heh, if I remember correctly, I took that book with me when mom decided to treat me an' Annabelle to ice cream when I was twelve, j'venais juste de commencer l'école secondaire... and then Annabelle told me about how she'd been accepted at Trinity Western University and I was so excited I knocked over my ice cream, got caramel sauce all over here...'  Just the thought of that ice cream inspired him to rise from the chair he'd been sitting in and walk into the kitchen, taking out a saucepan, a coffee mug with some faded words on it, a packet of sugar and a carton of whole cream from the various cupboards.  '...Heh, why not make a li'l sweet oblivion for myself?', he figured as he poured sugar into the cup – and as always when he was making his own caramel sauce, he softly sang.  “'lors je vais chez elle, ma p'tite amie à moi... sa senteur de miel me donne 'ssez d'joie...”, he said as he switched on the stove and swirled the water inside the saucepan around.  He could make the sticky brown sauce blindly already – he had been able to for a long time, since it was his first chemistry experiment and his favourite by far.  Not to mention he adored the taste of freshly made caramel.  “Elle me ravive, elle m'appartiens, et moi je chante d'elle... Ma douce péchér, ma seule raison, la fille de caramel...  La la la laaaaa... son nom était Chantelle et elle m'a soufflée un bisou... ses yeux brillaient et vrai, j'étais tout d'suite devenu fou...  Elle m'a vue dans la rue, elle souriait  si doucement... Mon coeur a s'éclairé et je chaaante...  Regarde-moi, Chantelle, ma p'tite amie à moi, ta senteur de miel me donne 'ssez d'joie... T'me ravives, tu m'appartiens, mon coeur te fait appelle... ma douce péchér, ma seule raison, ma fille de caramel...”  As he sang the song, he watched the transparent liquid slowly turn opaque, from a light yellowish tinge to a deeper brown, at which moment he added the cream to the mix and stirred it vigorously under the caramel to create a thick yet running sauce.   “Mmm, caramel... is there anything ya can't make better?”, he said to himself softly as he checked the freezer for ice cream – when he didn't find any, he dug up a cup of vanilla pudding from the fridge and decided to approximate a caramel flan by turning it over onto a plate.  _“...Oh brother..._ ”, the pyro groaned when the vanilla pudding fell apart the moment it left its plastic cup.  “...I've gotta tell Grant to stop buyin' the cheap fuckin' stuff... this is an embarrassment...  Mais bien, Dantan, t'savait déjà que c'ne serait pas un bon flan...”, he told himself as he spooned out the caramel sauce over the vanilla pudding.  His nightmare was completely forgotten the moment the first spoonful of sticky, sweet dessert passed his lips.  “ _Merdeeeeee, que c'est bon..._ ”, he muttered, instantly digging his spoon into the goop on the plate again.  Every subsequent scoop made his mind grow lighter and his lips grow stickier until finally the plate was empty and his thoughts were light.  Humming the remainder of the tune, he put the plate into the sink along with the saucepan and the spoons he'd used; the orphaned carton of cream got finished off in one big gulp, after which the pyro sighed contentedly.  '...Man, hard to think of anything better to get through a sleepless night... well, 'cept for wakin' Will up... heh...', he mused with a soft grin.  'Ah, Chantelle, t'm'as aidée de nouveau...'  He headed back to his bed, creeping back into the bedroom he and his lover shared so as to not wake the scout up.  '...Ah bien... et maintenant, j'vais dormir si bien...'  He closed his eyes to the vision of the girl from the song, Chantelle.  A bright smile, golden hair, lightly tanned skin – just like she had looked in the music video that had accompanied the song when he'd been just a teenager – that caused him to smile softly... however, just before he fell asleep, he saw the golden hair turn copper and the tanned skin turn milkier, crisscrossed with scars, and the smile became dizzying.  He sighed something inarticulate in the quiet of the approaching dawn, but sang loudly and clearly in his dreams, offering the girl he both knew so well and not nearly well enough an ice cream with caramel sauce that could never taste sweeter than she was.

 

“....Sam, mind callin' off ya friend Dante?”, Archie muttered as he appeared next to the pyro in the respawn room, while Sam had been revising her flamethrower, causing her to roll her eyes.

“Archie, how many times and how many different ways do you want me to tell you that Gabriel isn't singling you out?  It's all in your head.”  Chuckling, she put her flamethrower away and walked over to the scout, patting him on the shoulder.  “But I can understand why it's in your head – should've said no to Billy-”

“Yeah, _you_ 're one to talk, ya hands were practically down Dante's pants when me an' Billy walked in tha door.”, Archie retorted, causing her to throw up her hands and speak with a little hint of dissatisfaction in her voice.

“Low blow, Arch', _low blow_.  I told you already-”  She meant to continue, to once again explain to the scout how she and Gabriel had both agreed that one night of fun wasn't worth the price of their friendship, hoping that maybe this time he'd understand, but her roommate nodded and cut her off impatiently.

“I know, I was just teasin' ya.  But Gabe's _really_ chasin' me around the battlefield today.  He ain't even botherin' to try an' light me up, just... uses that deadly-ass _axe_ 'a his... look, could'ya just... I dunno, talk ta him?  Tell him off?  Maybe emphasize tha point a li'l with ya axe?”, he added at the end with a broad, somewhat vindictive grin, and Sam sighed, nodding softly.

“Okay, sure, but don't expect him to actually back off – I mean, we're friends, but we've still got a job to do, both of us.”  She walked back to her flamethrower, testing the newly finetuned gasoline feed and sighing.  “...And after that, I'm going to Dell.  This dumb flamethrower is acting up – it won't give a constant flow of fuel, no matter how many times I try to finetune it.  And I can't risk it not going off when I need it to.”  Still, she hoisted the bulky weapon up, the gasoline inside it sloshing around audibly as she ran out, taking a right to end up close to the middle control point, which was firmly in her team's grasp but which was disputed as long as BLU didn't capture the next point.  Sure enough, she found Gabriel running up to her, Axtinguisher firmly in his right hand, blood still dripping from the barbed wire coiled around the axehead.

“Ghhhphrrrrrmmm!”, she shouted, pointing at her gas mask and then at him – he nodded, lifting his gas mask off his face to reveal smears of grime across his face.

“Yeah, ma chère?”

“Arch wants you to chase someone other than him, seems to think you're singling him out, maybe because of Billy.”, Sam spoke rapidly, her words causing the other pyro to frown.

“...He thinks I'm chasin' him?  Pfeh, goes to show how much _he_ knows.  But okay, I'll try chasin' _you_ for a change-”, Gabriel started, only for Sam to snort and shake her head.

“Bad idea, Gabriel, I'm supposed to join Yaroslav and Siegfried for the next phase – if they catch you following me around trying to kill me, you'll end up neatly minced on a control point.  And before you say it doesn't matter, it hurts considerably more when coming back from a bullet hail than when you come back from, say, a backstab...”  As if it was timed, right when she'd finished her sentence, she felt the slender knife pierce her back with ease, and she groaned as everything instantly went dark around her; however, she could still hear Gabriel's angry outburst.

“ _Fuck you_ , Pierre, I was _talkin'_ to Sam!”  Sam's body felt light as she allowed the sensation to carry her along – when she opened her eyes after what felt like only a second, the others were all standing in the respawn room.

“...Did we lose?”, she asked, and Siegfried shook his head.

“No, it was zhe draw.  Or at least, zhat is vot zhe Announcer said.”, the medic added with a second's hesitation; the thought was completed by Jane, who seemed uncharacteristically amused.

“I think the _real_ reason we got to restart is your pal Dante punchin' Pierre and knockin' him out.  I saw Rudolf an' Radovan carting the Frenchie off to their respawn room for some emergency fixin'-up...  How'd you die?  Axtinguisher again?”

“Pierre backstabbed me when I was having a nice, pleasant conversation with Gabriel to ask him to give Archie some rest.  I think he didn't like the interruption – or he was being _honourable_ , because neither of us were still holding our weapons properly, so I was technically unguarded...”, Sam said with a shrug, taking out her flamethrower again and walking to Dell, who stood off to the side shaking his head.  “...Dell, there seems to be a little problem with my flamethrower-”

“Sam, c'n ah speak t'yew in private fer a second?”, the engineer asked – wondering what the man could want to talk to her about, she followed him to the back of the respawn room, where a door led to a small conference room with computer screens showing the same clips of battle over and over.  “...Ah know Gabe's a tender subject fer yeh, Sam, pardner, but... y'be careful, yeh hear?  He... ain't got how he is overnight, an' he's been how he is fer a long time.”

“I know.  Thanks for the concern, Dell, but Gabriel wouldn't hurt me.”

“Not knowingly, no.”, the engineer admitted, and Sam was torn between sighing and looking at the man as if he'd uttered a horrible profanity before choosing the former.

“...Look, Dell, if he'd hurt me without knowing it, that hardly counts as _him_ hurting me, does it?  Besides, why are you so worried Gabriel is going to hurt me?  Because we're friends?”, she said, causing the engineer to look at her in clear shock, which led to him patting Sam on the shoulder almost consolingly and leading the both of them to the table. 

“Sam, pardner... Gabriel used t'have another friend 'fore yeh-”

“Lander, your previous pyro – doctor Steinheim told me about him last week.”, Sam interrupted, getting a quick nod and an even more swift continuation from Dell.

“-an'... well, let's just say they were _more_ 'n just friends.  'Fore Lander, Gabriel didn't even look twice at the guys here, even if'n he'd been in prison fer six months 'fore he came here.  'Fore Lander, he also didn't drink – or at least, he didn't drink 's much as he does now.  Lander... _showed_ him those kinds'a 'escapes' from his pyromania.  An' th'way Gabe's treatin' yeh now...”

“...it's the same way as Lander treated Gabriel back in the beginning, right?”, she said, and Dell nodded solemnly.  For a few seconds, Sam was silent as she contemplated the information.  But in the end, she considered that no matter how worrying the thought seemed to the engineer, and maybe the rest of the team, it didn't change anything for her.  Besides, it felt like the team didn't trust her to be able to be wise and not let someone drag her along into something she didn't want.  “...Dell, I understand, I really do, but... but Gabriel is... _Gabriel_.”  The man sighed, looking dejected for a second, and then he smiled at her ruefully.

“Guess ah c'n understand tha', even if'n ah think some friends ain't nothin' but heartache.  But be careful, Sam, pardner, or he'll end up costin' yeh more than just a crate'f liquor in tha' there bar...”  As he left, Sam sighed, slowly getting up from the chair again.  The engineer's worries were slightly endearing, if not a little fatherly in a way that made her heart ache for her _own_ father; but Gabriel was, in essence, harmless, not to mention their grief connected them and she felt _safe_ and _sound_ around him.  In the end, as she walked to the door, she dismissed the thought that her friendship with Gabriel could come at a cost she couldn't, or wouldn't, pay.

 

“...An', what did th'Administrator-General say, son?”, Grant asked softly when Gabriel exited his room that evening, closing his cellphone delicately – the pyro looked up at the sound of the other man's voice, surprised to see anyone _care_ about his fate, let alone sound so sorry for his misery.  Most of the others, Billy included, thought his punch an overreaction to Pierre stabbing Sam.  They argued that the battle had still been in full swing and that the spy had therefore been allowed to kill the other team's pyro.  However, Gabriel's mention of the fact that they'd both had their gas masks pulled up and their weapons lowered had gotten the others to grow silent, not finding a proper reply to that fact.

“...One day of suspension from battle, sans salaire, an' a new medical check by doc Hardass to see if my many vices are still in check.  Probably get another visit by my old shrink, too.  Got off fuckin' cheap if you ask me.”

“Well, it ain't nothin'.”, Grant said softly, giving the pyro a mournful look that caused him to roll his eyes.

“It's also a lot lighter punishment than that time when I kicked Ron so hard I broke his shin – back then, she threatened to send me a letter of dismissal if I didn't instantly fall back in line.”, Gabriel countered, though he smiled as he said it.  He was glad that he hadn't been dismissed – not only because that would mean a return to the institution he'd been locked up in before coming to work for RED, but also due to the rest of the message he'd gotten from the Administrator-General.  “...But while I'm suspended, Sammy's also suspended – apparently it ain't fair to RED if S-sam's still fightin'... so it's like an early damn weekend!  ...Okay, yeah, I'm supposed to stay on this side, and Sam on the other side... but when have I ever fuckin' listened to anyone commandin' me?”

“...Good question, _did_ yeh ever do tha', son?”, Grant said with a broad grin that Gabriel effortlessly mirrored.

“Hell no!  ...Okay, I should probably head over to BLU side to see if the Administrator called Sammy yet-”  He was already walking as he spoke – but Grant pulled him back.

“Whoa, son, a li'l word first.  Now, ah kept mah silence when yeh punched Pierre's lights out – figured th'Administrator was gonna punish yew for it already – but y'oughta give us a li'l more explanation than just 'ah were talkin' to Sam' – cause ah'm sure that's not all tha' got yeh to hit our poor ol' spah.”

“Well, it was all.”, he said, and Grant gave him a look that was so clearly disbelieving that the pyro groaned and tacked on somewhat sulkily: “Well, it ain't a lie, I just punched him 'cause Sam hadn't even finished her damn sentence...”

“An' it ain't got nothin' tuh do with what happened last weekend?”  Gabriel stared at the engineer, wondering how he'd known, when Grant explained: “...Yeh were th'first tuh eat breakfast on Sunday, an' you an' Billy barely spoke two words t'each other... oh, an' then there's the fact ah saw Archie scarper from yer room an' I heard yeh snore in the showers.  Yeh shoulda oughta woken me up, son-”

“Yeah, well, wasn't Will's fuckin' fault – he has the right to sleep around too, if I'm allowed to.  An' I could've slept in Archie's bed – Sam _offered_ , but I didn't d- I mean, didn't wanna impose on Sammy like that.”, he quickly corrected.  It wasn't Grant's business that he hadn't wanted to risk waking up in the same room as Sam in the morning, and he _certainly_ didn't need to know how Sam had looked at him when she offered.  It had taken a lot of willpower to say no, and a lot more to actually move his limbs and walk out of the room.  However, it seemed Grant could read his mind, because he sighed and shook his head.

“Sam means a lot to ya, huh?”

“Well, yeah, I like h-him.  He's great fun – amazin' stories about parties and studyin' in _France_ an' _Holland_... an', uh, no offense, but he makes all the rest of you look like _des connards –_ heh, an' s-Sammy even _understands_ me when I say somethin' in French 'cause he studied there.  _E-eh bien, il m'fait joyeux,_ Grant.”

“...Yeah, that much 's sure...”, the engineer said, and he looked at Gabriel with the kind of look that he normally only had when they were having one of their 'heart-to-hearts', which were meant to keep his urge to light something on fire in check.  It was a kind of pat on the back without physical contact, and it made Gabriel somewhat nervous until Grant spoke on: “...Son, how's things goin' now 'tween yew an' Billy?”

“...What's Sam got to do with how things are between me an' Will?”, the pyro asked, his voice sounding only half as confused as he was.  But then, he remembered the look of jealousy on Will's features that first night, the way his lover had closed off when he'd thought he had slept with Sam, and the way Will had kept looking at him when he'd went to sleep that Sunday night, putting on his pyjamas, and he knew what the engineer worried about, and why.  “...You – you, and Will, an' maybe some of the others – think that Sam's comin' between me an' Will, huh?”

“Ain't he?”, Grant asked, sounding a little too understanding for Gabriel's liking.

“S-shit, he isn't!  's A matter of fact, _Sam_ is what keeps me an' Sam from happening-”, he defended, which only resulted in the engineer interrupting him softly and somewhat shyly.

“But you ain't stoppin' it, son, y'keep goin' after him-”

“ _'Cause I can't help myself!_ Merde, Grant, pourquoi t'ne comprends pas? Je lui voulais, et je lui veux encore, mais il n'arrête pas de dire que nous devons penser aux conséquences, qu'il n'est pas juste pour Billy, et qu'il ne veut pas coucher avec n'importe qui quand il est encore en deuil du suicide de son frère, et _j'sais_ qu-qu'il a raison, mais...  j'sais pas... j'en ai besoin.  C'est comme si je retiens mon souffle en attendant de toucher le sol et me briser, mais ce ne se produit pas ... et je ne savais même pas que je tombais.”

“...I don't know everythin' yeh said, son... but sounds t'me like yeh got a lot of thinkin' t'do.  Cause Sam's right – there's _consequences_ y'gotta consider, like how sleepin' with Sam might well end yer relationship with Billy an' change things 'tween you an' Sam-”

“ _J'sais bien_ , _vieux!_   I know...”  Gabriel sighed softly.  He knew all too well, and it was the reason why he'd walked off every time Sam brought Billy and him up.  He shouldn't sacrifice their relationship for one night of fun with Sam; and he also didn't want to sacrifice his friendship with Sam for something that'd probably hurt the both of them more than it'd bring them pleasure.  “...Comment ma vie c'est-il devenue si merdée...”, he wondered out loud – because life _had_ to have gone wrong somehow, somewhere, for him to hesitate about sleeping with someone because he _thought of the fallout for once_.  Lander's motto had been 'do first, worry later' and Gabriel had adopted that thoroughly; but when it came to Sam, somehow worrying seemed to be all he ever did – about her, about himself, about not drinking as much, about trying to hold himself back for her sake...

“Like ah said, Gabriel, sounds t'me like yeh got a lot'f thinkin' ahead of yew...”, Grant said softly, and the pyro could nearly _hear_ his thoughts hanging around him like a dense fog.  For a few seconds, they stood in silence, and then, Gabriel's cellphone rang, startling the engineer into walking off and Gabriel into a somewhat annoyed mood.

“Dantan.”, he said curtly, feeling unamiable towards the world, though that changed in a heartbeat when he heard the voice on the other side.

 _“Gabriel?  It's Sam.  I've just gotten a call from the Administrator-General that I'm exempt from battle tomorrow because_ you _are – did you really punch Pierre that hard?”_

“I broke his nose, bruised his pretty face, knocked him out for half an hour and gave him a mild concussion.  An' I didn't even punch him _hard_ , he's just fuckin' weak.”, Gabriel grumbled, causing Sam to laugh lightly as she spoke up again.

_“Well, the Administrator seemed to think you were guilty of some heinous crime.  I have to say, punching someone on your team, during battle...”_

“Doc Hardass was able to heal his broken nose in a minute flat only 'cause it happened in battle, I don't see why they're complaining about that fact.  Besides, it's the bruise Pierre's upset about, not the rest.  Though he did look a little upset when he puked all over Grant's shoes back in respawn.  ...And by the way, _don't you start up on me too_ , ya know I can't defend myself from you!”  More laughter followed, both before and as Sam answered his sentiment.

_”Oh, you poor thing, I didn't know I was your weak spot... heh, I'll have to remember that...  Anyway, since we're both excused from battle tomorrow, I asked permission to spend my afternoon with you – we'll have to wait until the battle halts for a reset around lunch, but then you can come over here and share your expertise!”_

“...Expertise?”, he said, completely nonplussed, his annoyance a thing of the past.  “I'm only an expert in a few things, and you ain't want any one of them, believe me-”

 _“I mean your expertise as a pyro, Gabriel, don't sell yourself short!  You've been a pyro for well on ten years now, while I'm not even past my first month, and there's a lot I don't know yet, like how to fix my flamethrower... Dell told me you even_ built your own _, and I'm just... I'm in awe.  I'm not as technologically savvy as you are-”_

“Well, _hell_ , Sammy, that won't last too long!”, Gabriel said loudly, grinning from ear to ear – Grant, who had been walking slowly back to his own room, turned around in surprise before shaking his head softly, smiling as well – adding: “I'll help ya make whatever you want from that shitty flamethrower the company gave you!  ...And in return, maybe you can tell me a li'l about what you used to do with your life before... all the shit...”, he finished meekly, causing Sam to speak in much the same tone.

 _“...Sounds like a good trade to me.  But I want to trade information for information – I'm talking about_ my _life and_ my _job if you're talking about_ yours _.  ...Before and after the pyromania set in.  I want to know it all.”_ , she said quietly – from the sounds of footsteps in the background, he could guess she was calling in the hallway and people passed by.  For a second, Gabriel hesitated, but then he nodded.

“...Deal.  Info for info... mais qu'allez-vous me donner pour réparer ton lance-flammes?”

_“Depends on what you want, mon ami.  ...And before you start thinking dirty, I am certainly not going to repay your helping me with any sexual favours-”_

“Yeah, please, don't.”, he said, feeling disgusted about even the consideration that she'd sleep with him solely because he'd done something for her.  However, remembering Grant's words, he hastily added: “...I mean, Billy'd kill the both of us, and I ain't dyin' over a flamethrower.”

 _“Too right.”_ , Sam said, her voice _demure_ , and that made Gabriel feel angry at himself for upsetting her, which was the reason why he softly tacked on a continuation to his words.

“...Let's forget about 'a favor for a favor', Sammy – you're my friend, and I'm fuckin' _giving_ you a new goddamn flamethrower, and I'm fuckin' _talkin'_ to you about my life pre-battle and you're gonna talk to me too, if ya want, because _that's what friends do, damn it!_ They share, they talk, they do nice things, without expectations.”

 _“...Well, with just one expectation...”_ , Sam admitted on the other end, her tone indicative of the broad smile that graced her features.

“Oh, and what are we expectin' then?”

 _“That we're both one hundred percent honest and unafraid.”_   Gabriel's grin was broad enough to hurt his cheeks now.  Sam had perfectly voiced his thoughts and had admitted, in the same breath, that he didn't need to be afraid that she'd make up something to assuage him.

“Oh, Sammy, ma chère, that sounds like a _perfect_ damn expectation to me.”, he answered before wishing her a good night and telling her again to expect him around lunchtime, when the men would take a break from fighting to eat in the respawn room.  As he walked back into his room, his conversation with Grant was forgotten completely and the tormented feeling he'd had because of it pushed aside in favor of the warmth and peace of mind that only talking to Sam could promote in him.

“...Okay, at first I had my doubts, but that is one _seriously lethal_ flamethrower...”, Jane said beside Sam as she walked out of the dining room together with the soldier and the engineer.  On the other side of the soldier, the engineer chuckled heartily and nodded.

“Yeah, ah don't know th'first thing 'bout flamethrowers like yers – th'comp'ny seems tuh throw 'em tuhgether easy 'nough, but they ain't mah area of expertise.  So, did Gabriel teach yeh how tuh do maint'nance on it, too?”, he asked, and Sam grinned as she nodded.

“Heh, yes, he did!  He took my entire flamethrower apart and started explaining 'this is a washer for makin' sure the gasoline doesn't spill into the pilot light' and 'that's your fuel pump, don't fuck with this bit ever'... he's so _knowledgeable_ about it.”  The expression of mild mirth on Dell's face and the look of slight disgust on Jane's told Sam her impression of Gabriel's slightly incoherent manner of talking and his constant swearing had been spot on.

“...Well, alrighty then.  ...So, this was yer last week of fightin', weren't it?”, Dell asked Sam as she switched places with Jane so she was walking in between the two men – instantly, Sam bit her lip, feeling more than a little nervous about what was approaching along with her surgery.  She had made a promise to the medic to tell the team the truth about herself before she left, and she intended to honour it.  However, after a second of feeling anxious, she turned to Dell with a smile on her face, because she also felt glad that she'd become like she was before again, at least physically, and that thought lifted her spirits again.

“Yes, it was.  After today, it's one week of surgeries, one week of revalidation and recovery, and then I'll be back to lighten your lives again!”

“Private-”

“Jane, do us all a favor?”, Sam said softly, speaking on when the soldier nodded without voicing that she could continue, “Don't call me 'private', it makes me feel like I'm a toilet.  ...Oh, and Dell, could I... maybe talk to you in private?”, she tacked on when the three of them arrived at the door to the engineer's room – instantly, Jane tensed, which was the reason why Sam had spoken up.  Noticing the soldier bypass his own room had brought the fact that he and Dell were having something going on back to the forefront of her mind, and she wanted to make sure that at least the engineer knew that she knew and didn't intend to tell anyone.  “...It won't take long, maybe five minutes, ten at most.  I know you need your beauty sleep.”, she added – more for Jane's sake than Dell's, because the engineer and the soldier shared a conversation in a few glances before the former nodded.

“Sure thing – but only ten minutes.”  He opened the door to his room, inviting Sam inside and waiting for John to head into his own room before walking in himself and closing the door.  “...So, 's this about Gabriel an' you again?”

“No, Dell, I... I don't know how to put this delicately, so I'll just go ahead and say it.  In the first week I was here, I saw Jane visit you in the evening, wearing his pyjamas.”  For at least ten seconds – ten _long, slow_ seconds – the engineer just stared at her while a blush crept up on his features all the way to his balding head: then, as if the blood took that long to reenter his lips and tongue, he stammered something that could be either an apology or an excuse which she hastily interrupted: “And I just wanted to say that what happens between you and him is _your_ business and that I don't mind.  In fact, I think it's... nice... that you two can be close like you are.  Life's a lot less lonely if you have someone to help make the hours pass by quicker.”  Another silence followed, though this one was a lot shorter.

“...Sam, pardner, y'ain't told me 'fore.”  It wasn't an accusation, but it did still sound a little questioning, and she nodded.

“I had... other things on my mind after that.  Gabriel, doctor Steinheim, Archie, learning more about this new job of mine...”, she admitted truthfully.  “I swear, the only reason I remembered to bring it up now is because Jane passed by the door to his own room, which clearly meant he was coming with you, and... well, I want you to know that I won't tell anyone about the two of you if you don't want me to.  And that I don't judge you.  Like I said, it's nice that you two... are such close friends.”

“...Well, thanks, Sam, pardner.  It's a good thing y'brought this up t'me in private-”

“-because Jane would've punched my lights out.  And the Administrator doesn't really like in-team fighting much.”, Sam said with a smile – Dell nodded without a second thought, seemingly, before speaking on.

“Yeah... but, uh, now that yeh're here an' yeh're bein' honest with me... y'spoke bluntly, so ah hope y'don't mind if'n ah do th'same.  D'yew have feelings fer Gabriel?”  Sam had been prepared for a lot, but not that question, and especially not spoken in the sympathetic tone the engineer had used.

“W-what?  I... he's my friend, sure, but... but I don't... I'm not in love with him or anything!”, she stammered, blushing heatedly.  “Why... why do you ask?  What makes you think-”

“Sam, y'ain't looked as happy tuh anyone as yesterday, after yeh spent yer day with Dante talkin' flamethrowers an' flares.  There's a couple'a explanations fer tha', but one of 'em is that yeh've got what he does... an' th'other explanation is that yeh love 'im-”

“I love him as a friend, Dell, not... no!  How could I even feel anything like that when I'm still _broken up_ inside about Michael?!”, she said – Dell seemed to understand that he'd unnerved her and he reached out to pat her shoulder.

“Sam, ah didn't mean nothin' by it-”, he started, but the pyro shook his hand away and disregarded his words.

“All everyone seems to think is that I _have_ to have feelings for him – well, I don't!  He's a nice guy, sure, and he's got a great heart if you go looking for it, but I don't... the only reason I let him kiss me and seduce me is because I haven't had sex in _six months_ and if someone attractive kissed you you're _bound_ to get turned on!  It's almost like nobody wants me and Gabriel to be friends!”, she said, her voice going from scratchy right to squeaky in her anger and worry – anger because she felt like the others didn't take her seriously or treat the way she liked Gabriel with the proper respect; worry because it wasn't the first time that someone seemed to think she had to have feelings for the other team's pyro, and sometimes she herself thought that she didn't just consider him a friend, but _more_.  However, Dell's interruption wiped her doubting thoughts from her mind.

“Sam, pardner, please, don't y'git all upset, ah didn't mean it like tha'...”  Finally, when Dell grabbed her shoulders and gently squeezed them, Sam focused her attention on the engineer's words.  “But y'know what ah said 'fore – Gabriel's been how he is for a long time, an' yeh're still young and it's easy fer a man like Dante tuh take advantage of yer mental injuries tuh-”

“He isn't like that, Dell.  I told you, he's got a great heart if you're willing to look beyond the surface, beyond the pyromania and the drinking and the casual affairs.  He does all that because _he_ has some mental injuries as well.  ...Sometimes I think I'm the only one that ever looked deeper than just his hands and what they busy themselves with, really – the way both you guys and Gabriel's own team talk about him...”

“Now, Sam, that's jus' bein' unkind.  Did yeh c'nsider that maybe Gabe ain't ever showed th'inside of his mind t'anyone apart from maybe Lander an' you?”, he said, and Sam blinked.

“...That... makes sense, somehow.  I mean, it takes a pyro to understand a pyro.  And I _don't_ mean 'pyro' as in 'pyromaniac'.  But even if he didn't share to anyone else, it's a two-way street.  You've got to give trust to get trust.  If Gabriel trusted Lander and trusts me, it's because we trust him; and if he doesn't trust easily, it's because he isn't trusted.”  Dell looked like he'd argue the point for a second before he clearly backed down again and nodded.

“...Y'might be ontuh somethin' there.  ...A-anyway-”  He didn't need to check his clock for Sam to know that their ten minutes of seclusion were up and the soldier would be getting impatient.

“I'm going.  Please tell Jane not to punch or threaten me?”

“...Awright, pardner, y'have a good night too.”, Dell said – the implications of his wish had Sam hastily retreating back to the room she shared with Archie, sitting down with a sigh on the bed.  Did everyone think that she and Gabriel couldn't be just friends, simply because they'd nearly ended up in bed together twice?  True, only _one_ of those times they'd been drunk enough to claim a temporary lapse of judgment, but didn't the fact that they didn't go through with it on either occasion mean much more than the fact that they'd started it?  And as far as she knew, sex did not mean love, far from it.

Her cellphone ringing was almost a welcome opportunity for her to completely push aside her previous thoughts.  Flipping it open and pressing a button, she spoke up lightly: “Hello...”

 _“Hello, Sam?”_ The voice on the other side was so familiar that Sam put a hand over her heart that suddenly seemed to _bubble_ with genuine affection.

“Oh, Damien!!  Oh my god, thank you so much for finally calling...  I've missed you so damn much, you idiot!”

 _“Hey, who are you calling an idiot, you silly goose?”_ , he retorted, causing her to laugh lightly.

“Oh, shut it, _you_ 're the silly one.  ...So how's things for you?”

_“Slow.  Home for a couple of weeks again, so that's nice – after your revalidation, though, I'm afraid I'm going on back-to-back business trips for a month or so.  I did get a few nice telephone calls in the past week.  Lucian Parnell called to say your new bosses praised you to the high heavens.  Apparently you're exactly what they were looking for, and then some.”_

“...mmhmm...”, Sam said to let her brother know that she was still attentive, allowing him to continue:

 _“...I, uh, also got a call from across the ocean.”_ It was clear from the grim quality in his voice exactly where the telephone call had come from, and Sam reacted in kind.

“I see.”

_“Apparently mum's still as upset as ever, we spent half an hour shouting at each other-”_

“Damien?  Let's... let's not talk about them right now.”, Sam said, sounding and feeling a little like a six year old girl hiding her face in the shoulder of her older brother when a scary movie played on the television again.  Damien had been her safe haven for a large part of her life, and now he had taken up that role again eagerly.

 _“...Well, then, uh... tell me about your job?”_ , Damien asked tentatively, causing Sam to nod, eager to escape the previous subject.

“Yeah...  Oh, well, the job's great.  Very diverse and, uh, _original_.  I try to be efficient but it's hard to not just _waste gasoline_ with that big flamethrower.”

 _“You almost sound like you enjoy having to incinerate people alive for a living.”_ , Damien admitted, causing Sam to sigh, though she did so with a faint smile, knowing that her brother didn't actually think she enjoyed that part of her job description.

”No, I do not like setting people on fire, but it's my job now, isn't it?”

 _“Yes, it is, and I am glad you don't get a kick out of doing what you have to do.  ...And how's the team you're working with?  Doctor Harvey told me a little over the telephone, about how you... find it safer not to tell them your full name...”_ , her brother said somewhat tactfully, which drew a soft chuckle from Sam.

“...Yeah, well, better safe than sorry, I guess – they're eight men, one of whom I have to sleep in the same room as, so... but Archie – that's the one I share a room with, he's our team's scout – already knows, and he doesn't misbehave, so I guess the others are going to react similarly.  Most of them are old enough to be my father, anyway, and they respect me, so...  They're okay guys, really.  And the other team is, as well.”

 _“Sam, my dear, that almost sounded like there's maybe someone that is more than just 'okay' among your colleagues and, uh, 'enemies'.”_   Again, Damien's words were chosen with care, but this time Sam didn't smile.  Instead, she stared at the wall hard, trying to figure out how her brother had guessed her thoughts about Gabriel and how their friendship seemed to make everyone else suspect there had to be more going on.

“...Damien, how'd you-”

_“My older brother senses were tingling.  So, tell me, what happened with who?”_

“Damien, nothing happened, but-”

 _“At what point are you going to realize that I am_ not _buying that?  You sound like the cat that ate the canary, Sam, dear, so tell me who and what the canary is.”_

 _“_ Okay, fine...  The first weekend in, I met the other team's pyro – who, by the way, _does_ have pyromania, just a heads-up-”

 _“I figured as much.”_ , Damien admitted, as clear an indication for her to speak on, which she did with little to no pause.

“- and we nearly ended up sleeping together because we'd both been drinking _ridiculous_ amounts.”  She halted strategically, to allow her brother to firmly deprecate her for drinking, but when nothing came from his side, she continued: “...Second weekend in, we didn't drink as much, but still... anyway, we're friends.  He's a good man, with a good heart and, unfortunately, a fragile mind-”

 _“That sounds familiar.  So, you're friends with a man that suffers from pyromania and that you nearly slept with twice?  That's all there is to it?”_ , Damien asked, his tone laced with disbelief, and Sam sighed.

“I'm friends with a man that suffers from pyromania, that drinks and sleeps around regularly and heavily, and that I nearly slept with twice, and both our teams seem to think there's no way we can be just friends.  My team's worried he's going to turn me into another version of him, and his team... probably doesn't like how close we are because we're on opposing teams...”, she said – her brother was silent for a while before speaking up once more, his words again chosen with utmost care.

_“Well, that doesn't make any sense.  I mean, you're professional enough not to let your personal life and your worklife mix, and surely that friend of yours is equally dedicated to his job even if his personal life is messy...”_

“Yeah, he is.”, Sam said, pride entering her voice.  Whether because of his pyromania or because of the fact the job was his second chance and he knew he'd never get another chance in life like this one, Gabriel's dedication was on par with her own: he'd been utterly devoted to fixing up her flamethrower the day before, and when they'd both entered battle that morning, he'd eagerly tested it out with her.

_“...but it sounds to me like your team and his aren't worried in vain...”_

“Oh my god, Damien, what makes you even suggest...!”, Sam said hotly, not even managing to utter what Damien implied.

_“So you're telling me that you nearly slept with him twice because what, he just happened to be there?  Or because you are attracted to him?”_

“Damien, if you're wondering whether I think he is hot, why ask the question if you know the answer?  I don't sleep with just anyone, I do still have _standards_.”

 _“...So you are attracted to him, and you do like him... that sounds like more than enough grounds for your team and his to fuel a_ lot _of speculations.  Not to mention you don't sound like you're entirely against the suggestion.”_

“Damien!  I... I am not pursuing any kind of relationship, least of all with a man that's already involved!”, Sam said a little loudly – she could imagine her brother's wince on the other end, and it was also apparent in the tone of his voice as he answered.

“ _...So he has someone on the outside?”_

“He's in a relationship with his team's scout.”, Sam said, rolling her eyes when her brother spoke.

 _“...Oh.  Oh, uh, okay then.  Then I_ don't _see why everyone's speculating.”_

“Really, Damien?  You know that doesn't have to... you know what?  Never mind.  Anyway, I've told him that I refuse to be the reason he and the scout break off their relationship.  And he at least tries to behave around me now.  ...So, you talked to doctor Harvey?”, she said, changing the subject, causing her brother to eagerly answer her question, clearly wanting to end their discussion about Gabriel as well for the moment.

 _“Yes, I did, and he said you'd only have a week's worth of revalidation after the surgeries.  That's very good news, though I_ had _kind of hoped we'd get more time so we could do some more brother-sister stuff together.  I'd love to take you to Neoplast for a tour, the other department heads said they would love to meet you – but I guess just taking you shopping for new clothes and out to a movie and an ice cream will have to do...”_ , he finished, his voice just that side of over-the-top bothered by the fact he wouldn't get the bonding time he'd expected, and she chuckled again.

“Oh, Damien, you can be such a ham actor if you want to be... I'll be looking forward to your visiting and taking me out for shopping and brother-sister time then!  See you soon.”

 _“Yes, bye, Sammy... try to behave tomorrow and Sunday...”_ , he said, but his tone betrayed he meant it teasingly instead of out of genuine worry, and she merely laughed, wishing her brother a good night before ending the call, shaking her head.  Her brother hadn't sounded worried as much as interested when he'd asked about Gabriel – clearly his motive was to make sure that his younger sister was recovering well from what had happened instead of fearing for whatever it was that other people thought Gabriel would do to her.  'Pfeh, as if I don't have a mind and a will of my own...', she thought as she started to take off her clothes in order to put on her pyjamas.


	10. We're burning one hell of a something

“Dantan!”  Gabriel looked up from his thoughts, whatever they were – because the second he heard Sam's voice over the din of the bar, he seemed to forget what he'd been pondering a second before – to see her sitting at the table with Tavish, Dell, Jane, Yaroslav and Grant, smiling broadly at him.  “Come over here!”

“Okay, okay.”, he said, taking his glass of vanilla gin which wasn't even half empty and walking over to his friend.

“Take a seat – we need a replacement for Siegfried, who left for base just now, and since this is a dictatorship and all these saps have to obey me because I promised them each a hundred dollars of their losses back, I nominate you.”, she said, patting the empty chair between hers and Grant's – the engineer nodded, and the others looked at him with a mix of apprehension and slight mirth that had him feel a little awkward.  When Sam noticed, she glared at the demoman, who instantly looked back at his cards, and then at the heavy weapon's expert and the soldier, who muttered a vague apology.  “Please?”, she asked, fixating him with a look that had his skin tingle, and he groaned a little more sincerely than the others probably supposed.

“Okay, damn it... you sure know how to railroad a man into fuckin' _anything_ , Sammy...”

“Hehe, one of my many, many strengths.”, Sam said, to which Gabriel replied with a grin as Dell dealt the next hand.

“Yeah, between you knowin' how to fuckin' sweet-talk a man into anything and you bein' able to fuckin' _torch 'em_ , it's no wonder this is a dictatorship.”

“Don't leave out 'er ability to play poker, Gabe, son – she's done picked us dry in five hands.”, Grant added – Gabriel's chuckle was grateful, because knowingly or not, the engineer had helped him soften his previous easy concession to Sam and made it look like he was just teasing her instead of being honest.  Because, of course, it was true that Sam could convince _him_ to do anything, but the others weren't supposed to catch on to just how true that was.  Gabriel quickly checked his cards when Grant nodded minutely, his mood improving as he focused on the game.

“...Texas Hold'Em?”, he asked, and Dell nodded, picking up his own hand.  “...Good, then I know how to play.”

“I sure hope so.”, Jane muttered insincerely as he dropped a ten dollar bill in the middle of the table, followed by Yaroslav depositing a twenty dollar bill on top of it.  Tavish scoffed but liberated twenty dollars as well from his pocket to follow; Grant, however, merely shoved his cards away, much to everyone's surprise.  “...I just wanna see what Dante makes of it firs'.”, he admitted, and Jane and Yaroslav nodded while Dell simply rolled his eyes.  Then, all eyes fixed on Gabriel as he looked at his cards, causing him to wince.  He held a five and a king – not great cards, he knew, but they meant nothing until the next phase, when the first three common cards were revealed.

“I'm followin'.”, he said, and before he dug up his wallet from his pocket, Sam placed her hand over the one he'd put on top of his cards as she put twenty dollars on the stack before adding thirty more.

“I follow that and _raise_ all of you.  Gabriel, _now_ you can take your wallet in peace, and don't bother about the twenty dollars, it seems a lot easier than buying you two rounds of drinks.  Not to mention our friends have been very generous.”, she said, patting the mound of money in front of her, causing Gabriel to grin crookedly.

“I'll bet they were – _Sainte Mère_ , that's gotta be two thousand dollars in tenners an' twenties.”

“...Yeah, in case anyone were wonderin', ah ain't followin' thirty.”, Dell reacted next to Sam, miserably turning over his cards to show them to the group, revealing them to be a two and an eight, just out of reach for a straight.  Jane groaned, as did Tavish and Yaroslav, but all three of them followed, as did Gabriel.  His mind was tingling, he found: it had been _years_ since he'd last played along with the poker game the men seemed to have made a commonplace of their Saturday night – he'd stopped because he'd become lousier at it the more he drank, and drinking was a better way to dull the pain than gambling was.  However, now, with Sam beside him, carefully calculating all their reactions and clearly fully focused on the game, he found all those evenings come back to the forefront of his mind, and he became singularly intent on winning as well.  The first three common cards played right into his hopes for a straight: a ten, a queen and another king, all of them hearts – and in the following round of bets, both Yaroslav and he raised.  Sam shrugged and followed them all, after which Tavish wisely folded out.  Two more cards and two more rounds of piling money in the middle later and it was down to the three of them – Yaroslav, Sam, and him.  Gabriel's mind was glowing with activity.  He had a straight – a nine, a ten, a jack, a queen and a king, though all different suits – and he could almost _feel_ the tension around the table.

“Time to show and tell, boys!”, Sam said, causing Yaroslav to sigh and show his cards.

“Full house.  Two kings, three nines.”

“I've got a straight.”, Gabriel admitted, grinning broadly – but not as broadly as Sam, for which the reason became apparent instantly when she turned over her cards, causing Dell's eyes to widen and Gabriel to groan emphatically.

“Royal flush!  All royalty, all hearts – means all that money is all mine!  ...I'll take that... okay, and now we subtract what I promised you all... a hundred around the table...”  She counted the notes before shoving five twenty dollar notes to everyone, including Gabriel, who shook his head as he pushed the money back.

“I ain't takin' your money, Sammy, darlin'.  You didn't promise me anything.”

“And yet you're getting the money, Gabriel, mon cher.  I only ask one thing...”

“Hell, for this kind of money, you 'd get a hundred things, Sam.”, Gabriel admitted, for once not meaning it lewd even though the others interpreted it that way, clearly – the BLU pyro smiled softly and winked at him.

“Well, just one thing is enough for me.  ...Promise me you won't use the money on liquor?”  The table grew so silent Gabriel could've sworn that everyone present had stopped breathing: he could understand why, because the previous one to mention his drinking in public in anything but an aside or joking way had been doctor Hartmann, and it'd taken the medic three days to appear in battle again after Gabriel had subsequently punched and kicked the medic until all he could do was whimper.  But now, with Sam looking at him pleadingly and the others expecting a fight of epic proportions, all he did was nod, smiling as he did.  When doctor Hartmann had mentioned it, it had been meant to upset him; but Sam mentioned it to show that she cared, of course, and that warmed his heart like a hot-air balloon.

“Sure, Sam.  Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Good.  You can use that money to buy yourself something fancy-”

“Sam, pardner, y'still don't know how much money we earn here, don't yeh?”, Dell said, shaking his head, and Sam shrugged.

“I didn't exactly pay attention to the salary in my contract – and there isn't an office for my own bank in this town, so I have no way to check my checking account-”  Most of the men snorted at the phrase, which was the sign for Sam to nudge Dell to pass the cards to Jane so the soldier could deal the next hand.  But as the man shuffled the cards, Sam leaned closer to Gabriel and whispered to him: “...How much _do_ we earn?”

“I dunno 'bout that sorry lot, but you an' me?  Since our line of work's extra dangerous an' we've got additional jobs – well, uh, I s'pose you're the one that makes your team's explosives-”

“No, not yet, but I will...”, Sam admitted, her tone of voice sad to show she didn't like Gabriel being treated the way he was, which caused Gabriel to smile softly as he continued.

“-and, well, we cook for _nos collègues foux_...  So I'd say it's more than my salary, which is about three thousand five hundred.”

“Well, that sounds about right...”, Sam said, smiling – her smile, however, disappeared in favor of an expression of shock when the pyro added.

“Donc, c'est net, pas brut-”

“What?!”  Suddenly, the entire bar went quiet, everyone from both teams looking at Sam and Gabriel suspiciously – and when Sam blushed deeply, Gabriel found the ideal way to save the both of them.

“You don't gotta act so surprised, Sammy, it's the fuckin' truth!  I _do_ drink one bottle of vanilla gin a day – ask anyone ya want, they'll confirm it, if ya really don't fuckin' believe me!”, he said loudly, looking around at the rest of the men, and instantly the group relaxed again, some nodding and a select few, among whom Grant, sighing and shaking their heads.  Sam, though, looked at him and nodded slowly.

“ _...Jesus_ , Gabriel, that much?  What am I ever going to do with three thousand five hundred dollars a month?”

“Buy yourself a fuckin' _huge_ house when you get outta here, for starters.”, he said, grinning softly as he added: “With a diff'rent room to sleep in every day of the goddamn week, an' a fireplace in each and every fuckin' one of 'em.  Oh, and there's _bonuses_ , too, if a fight you're in sells particularly well.  I once got that, back when they introduced the Axtinguisher – five thousand-”  He paused for a second to check his cards and to allow Sam to process the fact that he'd just randomly gotten five thousand dollars as a bonus, but after that he smiled and continued: “There ain't a lot of ways you can get bonuses, Sammy, but I'm sure you'll get plenty of 'em, you're _good,_ so you can probably buy yourself a house with a wine cellar the size of a football field.  If you're in for life, like me, you can buy yourself a lot of wine to go in it, too.”

“...Oh, god, I'm going to be making that kind of money for the rest of my career...”, Sam said incredulously, so startled by the knowledge that Grant had to shake her in order to get her to pick up her cards and stack a bet on the pile.  Maybe, Gabriel mused as she straightened herself, he stood a chance of winning this hand – even if it was a slim chance, and Sam's half-smile predicted that he was fighting a losing battle.

 

The next morning, Sam awoke feeling nervous – it took a while for her to understand what gave rise to her stomach to rebel.  She hadn't even drunk all that much the previous night: Gabriel had been moderated as well, since they'd been playing poker virtually until their eyes fell shut and they wisely retreated back to base, where Gabriel had said his goodbyes at the door to her room before hastily heading to his own side of the base.  He had said Billy would be waiting for him, but it'd been clear from the way his shoulders had tensed that he just hadn't wanted to slip up again, something Sam could understand.  Everyone, on both teams, seemed to think they had an affair going on.  Even Damien, who hadn't even _met_ Gabriel, had somehow gotten the idea that their two lapses of judgment meant that they were more than just colleagues and friends.  Nevertheless, it'd felt awkward, even more so when she lay in her bed awake long enough to hear Archie stumble past with Arsène; she'd only fallen asleep when the hallway went silent again, to dreams of burnt hands offering her vanilla gin and pulling her softly but determinedly closer to a body that smelled like gasoline and soot and a hint of something minty.

But then, after she mused that it couldn't be due to the previous night or to Gabriel misbehaving, it came to her.  '...Oh shit, yeah, I promised Siegfried I'd tell them at breakfast...'  Biting her lip, she swung her legs out of bed and stretched, her shoulders creaking and her back audibly popping – a groan escaped her lips at that, though the feeling of satisfaction ebbed away in an instant.  How many of the men would already be at breakfast when she went over there to eat?  Would Siegfried hold them back until they were all present?  Would the medic even have woken the men up so they'd all be there when she finally showed up?  The thought that he'd forgotten was preposterous, she knew – he was the archetypical German, thorough to a fault and practical in everything he did, which was ideal on the battlefield and even more so in his regular duties as a doctor, but which frustrated her to no end now because she knew he'd make sure, one way or another, that the entire team was waiting for her to open her mouth and confess the truth.  '...Oh man, it's no use worrying about it, Samantha, they'll figure it out anyway so you're better off telling them _now_ ', she sternly admonished herself, getting up from the bed and grasping around for her bathing supplies and heading for a short, brisk, but mercifully refreshing and rejuvenating shower.  As she walked in there, Archie was just switching off the shower he'd used and walking over to his towel; the mere sight of his gait made Sam snicker, causing the scout to look up at her.

“Well, heya, Sam, good mornin' – what're ya laughin' about? 

“Well, you just look like you had a lot of fun last night.”, she admitted, which got Archie to grin as he replied.

“Yeah, so what if I did?  Life's too short ta spend it turnin' down every offer ya get – ya understand that, don't ya?  I mean, ya got with Dante twice-”

“Almost.”, Sam corrected, her laughter dying away though she still smiled.  Archie seemed unperturbed by the way she suddenly went silent, however, and he spoke on.

“-and you had, like, tha biggest grin on ya face whenever ya were talkin' with him.”

“Yes, because we're _friends_ , Archie – you should try it someday, just being someone's friend instead of his bedwarmer-”  Now, the scout did take notice of Sam's unease, even though she hadn't meant her statement as harshly as he interpreted it.  He frowned and sighed, shaking his head.

“First off, I ain't Arsène's bedwarmah, it ain't like that, he respects me.  An' secondly, Sam, sweet-cheeks, I _got_ friends.  Billy's my friend.  Dell's my friend.  You an' Gabriel?  Ya ain't friends.  I see the looks ya give him, an' the looks he gives ya.  You two ain't friends, no mattah how badly ya pretend to be.  'Least, not _just_ friends.  When you an' Dante are talkin', ain't no one wanna come in between that 'cause the air between you's just about heated up to boilin' point.  ...Anyway, see ya, have fun thinkin' of _Dante_ under tha showah...”  The scout walked off after that, his towel wrapped around his waist, shaking his head – Sam meant to reply but didn't feel like arguing with the back of her friend, and so she was left showering.  Fortunately, as she exited the shower, feeling refreshed and smelling like 'ocean spray', it was as if the shower had also rinsed away the thoughts about her fellow pyro and the admittedly intense looks he'd given her the previous evening.  However, the worries, which had temporarily lightened while she washed, reared their ugly heads again when she put on a fresh, clean shirt and shorts along with blue sneakers.  She kept seeing shocked, disbelieving, or even outright calculating looks on her team mates' faces – Dell's, somehow, was the worst of all.  Oddly enough, it was Gabriel's face – his soft grin, his encouraging smile, the mischievous twinkle in his eyes – that calmed her again, and she even mustered the mental strength to smile as she walked to breakfast.  Unsurprisingly, everyone was present, and doctor Steinheim gave her a look of clear expectation that got her to sigh.  She didn't feel up to eating breakfast anyway, the nerves making her stomach feel like it had shrunk to microscopic sizes, and when Dell walked to her, she nodded towards the medic, indicating she was ready to tell them.

“Sam, pardner, doc Steinheim said y'got somethin' tuh tell us?”, the engineer said, and Sam nodded.

“Yes, I promised him I'd tell all of you before I left for the reconstructive surgery tonight.  You see, I... I think it's time you knew my _full_ name.  Some of you already know – like doctor Steinheim, who did my medical investigation two weeks back and who has my medical records, and Archie and Arsène, who were worried and did a little investigating...”  It was a very aside mention of the spy having spied on her first medical check and having communicated his findings to Archie, and Arsène clearly seemed to understand that she wasn't angry at them, if his soft smile was any indication.  The rest of the men, however, seemed to be confused at what she could possibly mean and why knowing her full name was significant, something she resolved next: “My full name is Samantha Tennant.”

“S-suhmantha?”, Dell said softly, and the silence grew absolute in the dining room as five pairs of eyes fixed on her in varying degrees of surprise.  Sam could see all the looks she'd feared to see: shock, slight anger, even the lewd flick of Theo's eyes, but then, just when the silence bypassed the point when it changed from awkward into genuinely embarrassing, Yaroslav chuckled softly.  The next second, he laughed heartily; and a second after that, he'd risen from the sofa and walked up to Sam, hugging her as tightly as he could.

“Little pyro _is_ girl!  Is very good!  She is _strong_ girl, _brave_ girl!  Not like little girls on television!”

“S'mantha-”

“Look, all of you.”, Sam said loudly, interrupting the engineer with an apologetic look at the man, who nodded softly to show he accepted the unspoken apology, “...This changes _nothing_.  I'm going off-base for reconstructive surgery because, well...”  Motioning at herself, she drew the attention of the men once again – and, she mused, for the last time – to her body that looked like she could be either male or female; then, when Theo's look became once again lewd, she spoke on: “I'm not going to lie to you, I'll look a _lot_ different when I come back.  But apart from what I look like, nothing changes.  That means, Theodore Mundy...”, she said when the sniper saw fit to lick his lips, causing seven pairs of eyes to fasten onto _him_ instead of her, “...that hell has to freeze over and the devil _die of frostbite_ before I'd ever look twice at you, let alone consider sleeping with you, you overzealous kangaroo-humper.  I'd rather go to bed with a leper.”  Again, utter silence reigned for a few seconds: then, everyone started laughing loudly as Theo looked like he'd have a heart attack.

“I didn't-  I wasn't-”

“Yeeeeaaaaah, like hell ya weren't eyein' Sam like that, ya Aussie jerkoff.”, Archie said before clapping Sam on the back and softly telling her: “...Well done – if anyone was gonna give ya grief, it'd be him.  Well, him or Chris, RED's sniper.”

“S'mantha, y'did one _hell_ 'f a job hidin' that from everyone fer so long.”, Dell said the next second, mirroring Archie's pat on the shoulder on the other side of her, adding in a softer voice: “Y'ain't needed t'hide from us, we would'a respected yew all th'same.”

“Yes, well, I wasn't sure about that – and considering the circumstances of me starting here, I really could use the fresh start...”, she said – Dell blinked but didn't seem to question her further on the subject, instead eagerly following doctor Steinheim into inquiring into her surgery and revalidation, a topic that Sam gladly delved into, cherishing the support her team was giving her even though she'd lied to them.

 

“...'lors je vais chez elle, ma p'tite amie à moi...”, Gabriel sang under his breath as he walked back to the base, his backpack slung over his shoulder and the bottles of vanilla gin inside it providing a reassuring weight against his back.  “...Sa senteur de miel-”  His song was interrupted somewhat rudely from a loud voice issuing from the other side of the fence surrounding the base, singing a song as well.

“Rockin' it hard, bass pumping like a heartbeat, outta my mind and feelin' the heat, so pumped, so high, so outta controoooool... Comin' atcha like a bullet, terminal velocity, yeah you guessed it, this is reality, stealin' your heart, stealin' your sooooo- oh, hey Gabriel!”  Of course it had to be Sam, he mused as the BLU pyro walked towards him, smiling broadly.  “What brings – uh, _brought_ – you out of the safety of our little home sweet base?”  For a second, Gabriel contemplated saying 'nothing', but he quickly deserted the notion and shrugged.

“Same as always.  Liquor.  My secret stash, my secret hidden stash and my secret hidden backup stash were empty.  Gotta keep up my one bottle a day quota, right?”, he said, and Sam sighed.

“Oh, Gabriel... you're a great guy, but all that drinking is going to get you into an early grave.  Your liver has to be hanging on by a thread, really.”  Of course, Gabriel knew that as well – his sister was a doctor, after all, and she'd always spoken so beratingly about the people she'd seen that had drinking problems.  He knew his odds, he knew they weren't looking good, but it still beat having his pyromania worsen in his opinion.  Lander's fate was a grim reminder of what could happen if his urges to start fires got any stronger.  “...But I'll let you off the hook for now.  When I get back, though, you'll have to-”

“Wait, what d'you mean, 'when I get back'?  T'va quelque part?”, Gabriel spoke rapidly, causing Sam's smile to fade away and her eyes to grow sad.

“Gabriel, didn't I mention it yet?  The reconstructive surgery I need, to-”  It came rushing back to the forefront of his mind now: the mention of her 'not being whole', the story of how the doctor had said she'd only need a short amount of revalidation sessions, the way she'd told him that Friday that she was nervous for the weekend...  He finished his fellow pyro's statement in a soft, subdued tone of voice.

“To restore your body... oh fuck, I completely... well, I didn't forgot, but I didn't think it was so _soon_... didn't ya say it'd take one more week?”

“No, this week. Later today, as a matter of fact.”  Gabriel groaned, feeling like the ground was shaking under his feet.  Sam would be gone for two weeks – just when he got the feeling he could manage this friendship, right when he'd not given into temptation the night before.  Suddenly he _regretted_ not even having kissed her.

“...Oh, merde, Sammy...  Que je vais t'manquer comme... comme tu peux pas l'imaginer...  Serait-il trop à demander si je peux t'embrasser qu'une seule fois avant de partir?”, he tried, and she chuckled.

“If I believed for a second you were thinkin' of a kiss on the cheek, Gabriel, I would let you gladly – but you're not, so... probably it's best if I say no.”

“...Yeah...”, he admitted, sighing and shifting the weight of the bottles of vanilla gin on his back, which suddenly felt like millstones dragging him down.  Then, however, he focused on another, much more important, detail.  “...you were goin' to town?”

“Oh, yes, I, uh... I've got a few things to do.  I need to send some copies of documents to BLU, and I'd love to treat the guys to something that isn't beer and crisps-”

“Hell, you wanna lift?”, Gabriel said, a plan forming in his mind.  “Then I can treat you to somethin' too, and you don't gotta spend half an hour walkin' through the burning-hot asshole end of the universe.”

“W-well, it would be nice-”, Sam started, clearly intent on saying that she didn't mind the walk, but Gabriel shook his head, dismissing any argument she could have against his driving her.

“Just wait here, I'm gonna get the keys to Grant's pick-up!”, he said, running full pelt to the base to toss his backpack onto his bed and then to the engineer's room.  “...Grant, I need your car keys, man!”

“What?  What for, Gabe, son?”, the engineer said, appearing in the doorway wearing boxershorts and an unbuttoned shirt, holding the keys – fortunately for Gabriel, he held them loosely, which greatly helped snatching them from the man's hands, giving rise to a true orchestra of swearwords that he already tuned out.

“Got 'em!”

“Gabriel, you really shouldn't go through all that trouble for me...”, Sam said, smiling at his shaky grin and his quick wink as he pulled her along to the car.

“No trouble, ma chère – now, uh, let's just go before-”

“ _Gabriel Dawntahn, yeh better not go 'round drivin' mah car!!_ ”  Grant's angry exclamation was loud enough to still make Gabriel's ears ring, and Sam looked at Gabriel in clear wonder before laughing softly and shaking her head.

“Well, I don't think you can get into any more trouble with Grant, at least, so fire her up and let's go!”  He needed no further exhortations: the pick-up sputtered a little before starting, and he drove it with all the care he could muster, figuring that Grant wouldn't stay mad at him if he drove it carefully.  “...Maybe we should pick up your engineer a little something in town as well so he doesn't freak out when you return his car.  You know, something that'll add a little extra weight to your apology to him.”

“My thoughts exactly, Sammy!  ...So, now, 'bout you... what d'you say to a little sinning with your good friend Gabriel?  I haven't introduced you to my greatest sin yet-”

“I shudder to consider what it is.”, Sam said with a smile, looking at him with a look that said she meant nothing of what she said and that she really wanted to see.

“Ah, mais c'est un bon péchér!  Well, 'good' as in 'it won't kill me or get me beaten up'... it's my sweet tooth.  I have a thing for caramel, in any way, shape, form and mixture of flavors you can think of.”

“Caramel and mint?  Salty caramel?  ...Caramel-covered broccoli?”  Gabriel nodded at the first two, but the last one earned Sam a snort and a faked look of disgust.

“Sammy, _bleh_ , qui pourrait même manger cela?”

“Je sais pas, Gabriel, mon cher...  But hey, maybe a little sweet something would calm Grant, huh?  So you've got a place to satisfy the sugar cravings?”, she asked, putting a hand on one of his on the steering wheel, causing the car to ever so lightly deviate from its straight path as Gabriel got distracted, but after a second he gained control over his nervous system again and nodded.

“Oh, I got _the best_ place to satisfy mon envie de caramel...”  One look at Sam told him he'd made the right decision in sticking close to her – as well as how their goodbyes later would smart because this time, it wasn't just going to be 'see you tomorrow in battle', but 'see you in two weeks'.  But with the prospect of Sam sharing in his sweetest indulgence, everything seemed more than bearable.

 

*****

 

“So, how are you feeling today?  Does your back still hurt?”  Damien's tone of worry made Sam smile as she looked at her brother, who had taken his usual seat next to her.  The first and second rounds of surgeries had gone exceptionally well, doctor Harvey had told her, and she'd been allowed out of bed the previous day to get used to the results.

“My back's perfectly okay, thank you for asking, but I keep... well...  it's really confronting to see how one and a half months without breasts makes a girl used to _not having them_.  I keep bumping my hands into them accidentally.”  She looked herself over emphatically, causing her brother to roll his eyes.  She liked the results of the surgeries as well: sure, she'd been at least a cup size larger before the fire, but she'd also lost a little weight due to the long period she'd spent bedridden, and she much preferred her current leaner appearance, not to mention it'd make her job a lot easier if she was leaner and nimbler.  “Oh, but my team's going to have a _field day_ when they see me again.  I swear, not one of them isn't going to stare.”  She chuckled as she imagined their reactions: Dell and doctor Steinheim would blush and pointedly refuse to look at her at first, until they'd gotten used to the sight; Theo and Chris and maybe Archie, Arsène, Billy and Gabriel would stare.  Imagining Archie's clear discomfort, she chuckled lightly, causing her brother to give her a questioning look that she verbally answered.  “...Archie, the guy I share a room with.  He's going to be having a _really_ difficult time with me looking like this.”

“Didn't you say he has a relationship of sorts with your team's spy?  The, uh, Frenchman?”, Damien asked, and Sam snorted.

“They have a relationship of sorts, yeah, if that's what you could call their once-in-a-while sleeping with each other... but it doesn't mean that Archie only looks at _men_ that way.  He's clearly attracted to me, but he doesn't want to sleep with me.  I think he has a much easier time sleeping with men without getting emotionally involved, and he doesn't want to get emotionally involved with me that way, so...  Oh, but if Archie is going to freak out, then _Gabriel'_ s reaction is going to be pure gold...  He won't know where to look!  My guess is, he's either going to stay away from me all the time _or_ he'll simply jump me the first moment he lays eyes on me-”

“Oh, that's your colleague from RED, huh?  Gabriel?  The one you told me about before?”, Damien asked, and when Sam nodded, she was surprised to find her brother adding: “...Well, if he _did_ jump you, I suppose it would make things a lot easier for the world, perhaps.”

“What's _that_ supposed to mean, brother dear?”, Sam asked, nonplussed.  Gabriel scooping her up in his arms and announcing at the world at large that he was going to be with her didn't exactly seem like it was uncomplicated – for one, there was his steady relationship with Billy, and then there was the way she felt about having any kind of senseless liaison when she was still heartbroken over Michael's suicide, not to mention any kind of thing, whether meaningless or committed, with a troubled man like Gabriel was bound to get messy, especially with all the trouble she herself was still going through.

“Well, my sweet Samantha, you don't have to take my word for it, but you and him... it sounds a lot like a matter of gravity.”

“Gravity?”, she repeated, feeling even more confused by her brother's choice of metaphor – however, when he elaborated, she found it was a very fitting metaphor.

“Yes, gravity – you and him are gravitating towards one another, circling around the same point, spiralling closer until you'll collide.  I suppose if you two were to sleep together... it'd clear that up.  Either you drift apart or you stay compacted in that one spot.  ...And don't argue with me, Sam...”, he said wearily when she tried to speak up in disagreement, to tell him that that wasn't what was going on between her and Gabriel, “...it's clear in your eyes when you speak about him, and about nearly sleeping with him.  You may not want to fall, but-”

“Oh god, Damien, I'll admit to anything, just _please_ don't use the metaphor of falling again.”, Samantha said, her eyes darting to the table by the side of her bed, where her book lay.  In between its pages, the envelope still lay, pristine as the day she'd gotten it from Damien's hands as she lay in her hospital bed.  She still remembered the tears she'd shed back then, the pain they'd caused and the pain they hadn't been able to alleviate – a pain that no amount of morphine or tranquilizers could counter.

“There's a difference between falling prey to depression and falling in love, Sam-”, Damien started, but she shook her head.

“There's no difference – you give up a part of yourself to both.  Your heart, your mind...  I can't.  I can't give myself to someone.  I'm not whole.”  To her surprise, her brother smiled ruefully, even chuckling mirthlessly as he spoke in reply.

“Sam... oh, Sammy... _nobody_ is whole.  The way you told it, this Gabriel you seem to have a soft spot for is far from whole as well... and I'm not saying you should, nor am I saying you shouldn't; I just mean that it might not be as much a matter of _choice_ as it is of _necessity._ ”

“...Okay, disregarding the fact that you've basically just said I _need_ to get laid...”, Sam said with a soft chuckle that Damien mirrored, “...I think it's a bad idea to give myself to someone when I'm still trying to get to terms with what my life has become.”  Damien's face got his usual pensive expression, as he'd always gotten when he was trying to organize his thoughts, and then he sighed, nodding.

“...Well, when you put it like that, Sam, it does make sense... but I still stand by what I said.  Love, or lust, or whatever you've gotten yourself into with this Gabriel, isn't rational and it won't listen to reason.  You and that colleague of yours, you're going to crash together some day.  And despite all of his vices and the fact that you're still recovering both physically and mentally, it doesn't sound like it's all that bad that you will.  ...Anyway, I'll leave you for today.  Doctor Harvey said your last round of surgery's due tomorrow-”

“Ouch, yeah, don't remind me, they're going to do the hair transplants in the morning, after which I get to have my head wrapped in bandages for another three days, and in the afternoon I'm getting my eyes lasered and my sinuses checked.  All very lovely, and unfortunately not something I get knocked out for, I'll have to endure the pain-”

“I think you'll be able to manage the pain of three simple procedures – doctor Harvey said the only thing that could happen was that you'd get a bit of a headache from the hair transplant, since it's so extensive.  But he _also_ said that you'd have hair like mine by the end of the week.”, Damien answered, running a hand through his reasonably lengthy hair, causing Sam to chuckle.

“Good god, I'll be happy if I even have hair like doctor Harvey, anything beats those few measly plucks of wire that managed to survive... Okay, well, I'll see you tomorrow evening then?”

“I've kept my schedule free for you – and if you're fighting fit this weekend, I thought I'd take you on your first shopping trip around New York.  I've got a co-worker, Maisie, that told me where to find all the hip shops-”

“Damien?  It's ten thirty, you should be in a meeting in ten minutes, right?”, Sam reminded him, prompting her brother to softly swear and press a kiss to her cheek before running outside, leaving her to lay back against her pillows with a sigh.  “...He's such a loopy man...”, she mused softly – as if having heard her statement, the door opened and one of the nurses entered.

“Good morning, miss Tennant.  I've brought you your medicine, and a letter that arrived for you this morning.”  Surprised, she looked at the envelope, finding the untidy handwriting on it familiar.  Opening the letter, she found a short note: 'Sammy, okay, so you didn't leave the address of your hospital, but I borrowed Grant's computer and did a little lookin' up and I figured out which hospital you were in – really too easy, all I had to do was see which hospital in New York has the best burn ward.  Then I phoned in and asked for your room number.  A cinch.  Okay so here's the real message: 1-217-595-3326.  Waitin for ya, ma chère.  Love, kisses, Gabriel.'  He'd written, like on his previous note to her, 'and a hot fuck' but had crossed that part out so vigorously that he'd actually torn the paper; underneath it was a tiny, almost illegible scribble 'don't tell your brother or he might kill me'.  She snorted with laughter, causing the nurse, that was now checking her chart, to look at her in clear confusion, but nevertheless, she took out her cellphone.

“Can I make a call?”

“Well, normally cellphones aren't allowed, but five minutes should be okay.”  Gratefully, Sam nodded at the nurse and dialled the number.  It didn't even ring twice before she got an answer, which was just as gruff and blunt as she'd supposed it would be.

_“If your name ain't Samantha, I don't wanna hear it.”_

“Aren't you charming, monsieur Dantan?”

 _“Sammy!  Oh god, you actually called!  Sainte Mère, I missed ya.  Let me tell you, sittin' around the fuckin' base all alone all the goddamn day is miserable, I can't wait until you're back and we can off each other in battle again.”_ Her fellow pyro then sighed – happily, Sam assumed, because his tone was light as he spoke on: _“...Ya sound a lot more girly now, ma chère.  I hope you look drop-dead fuckin' gorgeous – that might finally kill all those shitheads on ya team.”_

“And yours.”

 _“Yeah, if they don't look away the next second, they'll be wishin' they're dead.  I called dibs on ya, Sammy.  Ain't no one that's goin' to be ogling you apart from me – not unless they wanna risk two black eyes and a smashed-in_ face _.”_

“You do know how to flatter a woman, Gabriel-”

_“Trust me, if I could find a way to kiss ya over the telephone, Sammy... but enough teasin'.  How are you?”_

“Oh, you know... still a little painful, but it'll be okay.  It's a little... well, odd, how a girl gets used to life with a flat chest even after only a month and a half.”  She expected the pyro to make a lewd comment, but he seemed to be hell-bent on defying her expectations.

 _“...Well, you'll get used to life with an ample bosom in no time at all, ma chère – like I said, you'd better be fuckin' stunning or I'm havin' a word with your doctor.”_   Then, with a soft chuckle, he at least partially fulfilled her expectations: _“...So, uh, de quelle taille parlons-nous?  Double D?”_

“Gabriel, please...”, Sam said, laughing lightly – when her friend spoke again, the soft laughter turned into full-bodied, genuine loud giggles.

_“Puis-je t'étreindre facilement, quand même, à ton retour?  Si tu dis pas 'oui' à ma suggestion, je ferais mieux de t'avertir que je ne vais pas te laisser partir sans au moins un gros câlin. Il faut que je sens si ils t'ont donné des produits de première qualité, non?”_

“Gabriel, fait le monde un plaisir-”, she started, only for her fellow pyro to interrupt her, clearly grinning as he did so.

 _“Je suis seulement intéressé de plaire_ toi _, Samantha, tout le reste du monde peut aller se faire foutre.  ...Is your brother there?”_ , he suddenly asked, and Sam smiled.

“Why, are you afraid he's listening in?  If so, you're a little late in asking, aren't you?”

 _“...Side question, how good is_ his _French?”_ , Gabriel instantly followed up with, and now Sam snickered.

“Well, he's a highly successful international businessman that has travelled practically everywhere for his job, so I think he's picked up something here and there – but his, uh, slang vocabulary isn't as good as mine.  Fortunately for you.”

_“Donc... j'peux dire alors que je veux te faire l'amour toute la nuit, manière très détaillée et encore plus sale, et il ne saurais pas ce que j'ai dit, pas vrai?”_

“...Oh, Gabriel, do you ever have any _pure_ thoughts?”, Sam asked – his tone of voice had been mostly teasing, and his grin had sounded even in his words – causing Gabriel to respond in a solemn tone, his words finely articulated for once.

_“Why, Samantha, what is that supposed to mean, huh?  When I think about you, my thoughts are-”_

“Pure sewage, but that's okay.  Don't ever change, Dante, mon cher.  ...So, how's life on the base without me to keep things fresh?”, she asked, causing Gabriel to snort derisively.

 _“Well, they're probably wishin' you were back sooner rather than later – Dell's cookin' isn't much, and they miss havin' you around in battle.  They lost a couple of matches yesterday.”_ As Gabriel started to tell her about the battles their teams had fought without them, Sam found her mind focusing on how much she missed her new job already, ignoring the look the nurse cast her.

“...Dante, yer doctor's here!”, Grant said that Sunday, causing the pyro to look up from his book in surprise.  It took his weary and hungover mind a few seconds to remember that part of his punishment for punching his team's spy had been another psychological evaluation by his outside psychiatrist, doctor Amanda Hayakawa.  '...Huh, wonder what she looks like, it's been nearly a year since I last saw her... would she still have those li'l wrinkles next to her eyes when she smiles?', he wondered.  For a long time, the closest he'd had to a friend was the doctor, whose concern for him was naturally purely professional, but still.  'Guess when a man doesn't have anyone in the world that cares 'bout whether he lives or dies, it's refreshin' when someone _does_ care', he told himself as he rose from his chair and walked to the door of his room, where his doctor was already waiting, wearing a smart two-piece combination with a cream blouse.

“Gabriel, how are you?”, she said, extending her hand for him to shake, causing him to smile.

“Oh, ya know, good.”

“Still drinking, sleeping with three different people per week, and lighting things on fire?”  There were a grand total of five people that were allowed to be so blunt with him – the doctor was one of them, along with Grant, Billy, the bartender from the bar they went to on Saturdays, and Sam – without suffering physical injury as a result.  And only two of those five people made him feel self-conscious for admitting the truth, which was why he blushed as he nodded.  “...Well, let's go inside and talk.  I have a feeling we'll have a lot to talk about.”  He opened the door for her, allowing her to enter his room first.  Somehow, Billy was absent – which also made sense when he considered that Grant had come to get him: of course the engineer would've first sent Billy elsewhere to make sure doctor Hayakawa and he had a quiet place to talk.

“Bien, asseyez-vous, doctor Hayakawa...”, Gabriel said softly, gallantly offering her the chair from his desk once he'd removed the copy of Byron's collected poems from it; when she sat down, he took a seat on the edge of his bed, looking at his knees while he waited for her to speak up first, which she did without fail.

“First things first: the reason I was sent here... your Administrator called me and told me you punched your team's spy, mister Pierre Delrouche, and gave him a concussion... simply because you said, and I'm quoting here, 'I was having a conversation with miss Tennant, the pyrotechnician from the BLU team, and we both had our weapons in the safe positions'.”

“True, an' I know it was a bad thing to do.”, Gabriel readily admitted, groaning when his head chose that exact moment to throb.  Sam not being present had meant that the rest of both teams had ignored him again, just as they had before his colleague had started, and as a result of that he'd drunk more than enough to make even a man with a higher-than-average tolerance for alcohol completely drunk.  Grant had had to drive him to base and drag him to his bed, where he'd slept until five in the morning, when he'd thrown up everything he ate the twenty-four hours before and then some before falling asleep again in the toilet stall still on his knees in front of the toilet bowl.  “...Ahh, merde...”, he groaned, rubbing his forehead, something that was obvious enough for doctor Hayakawa to spot.

“...You're hung over, Gabriel?”  It sounded more surprised and worried than condemning, and he sighed, nodding.

“Yeah, t'as probablement pensé que j'pourrais pas plus me soûler, non?  Alcohol addict like me, how's a guy like that still manage to drink enough to get wasted?  Well...”  Again, he sighed, shaking his head and adding: “Ya know what?  Never mind.  I... peu importe. c'est seulement que Sam me manque, je suppose. Je n'ai jamais remarqué à quel point ce métier est putain terne sans elle.”

“Sam?”, the doctor said, sounding nonplussed, and Gabriel waved a hand in front of himself airily.

“Samantha Tennant.  BLU's pyro.  ...Oh, but _she_...  She's somethin' else...”, he admitted.  As usual when he thought about her, he switched to French when describing her to the doctor, the sight of her in his mind's eye enrapturing.  “Elle a les yeux noisette et la peau couleur de crème. Et elle est forte - et pas seulement 'lever vingt kilos aisément' forte, mais 'ne plaisante pas avec moi si vous voulez continuer à respirer' forte. Elle est douce comme le caramel - non, elle est plus douce que ça, même. Mais elle est aussi attrayante, et sensuelle, et ... dieu, je veux juste-”

“Don't bother finishing that sentence, I... think I can guess...”, the doctor said gingerly across from him, her face betraying the slightest hint of a shy blush.  She'd understood him, he knew – but the reason for that smile of hers, which struck him as sympathetic rather than distancing as usual when he spoke about his more physical pastimes, became apparent the next second, when she continued: “...I take it your current, uh, _partner_ , mister Jameson, isn't really miss Tennant's biggest fan?”

“Nah, he likes her.  Why wouldn't he?  Sammy's... well, she's amazin'.  Everyone that she meets just... instantly likes her.  She's a winner – a winner of hearts.”

“Sounds to me like she won your heart, all right.”, the doctor said, and only then did Gabriel realize what she meant.  He shook his head softly.

“Now I know you've been talkin' to our engineer, Grant.  Mister Dillinger.  He seems to think me an' Sam are more than just friends.”, he added when she looked at him in slight confusion: the extra information got her to shake her head softly.

“No... I just can hear it in your voice, Gabriel, and see it in your body language.  You've never relaxed so completely when I was talking to you, in any of the evaluations we've had in the past ten years.  There was always still some tension in your body – your shoulders, the way you held your hands... but now?  It's like you're a different man, sitting in front of me.  So this miss Tennant, you're... well, it's clear you're interested in her in your, uh, _usual_ way-”

“You can say outright I wanna have her, doctor, really.”, Gabriel said, though the woman continued as if his interruption hadn't taken place.

“-but it's also clear to me that you've formed an emotional commitment to her as well.  A very deep emotional commitment, if I can trust what you've just said.  Your job is anything but boring – and you would be the last person to ever find it unappealing, because of your condition.”  She was right, he realized: ever since he'd said his goodbyes to her a week prior, he'd been so busy missing her that starting a fire had been far from his mind, and he'd been so busy thinking of how she'd be doing that the hours he didn't spend on the battlefield flew by.  His mind started rapidly processing everything that came to the surface concerning his relationship with his BLU counterpart, and he spoke softly in his native language, disregarding the look of concentration on his doctor's face as he did so.

“...Je me sens bien autour d'elle. D'accord, c'est normal... Je me sens grand autour d'elle. Je n'ai pas à me comporter différemment autour d'elle. Je sens que je peux tout elle dire, que je peux lui montrer mon vrai moi. Toujours bien, non? ...Je me réjouis de la revoir. Encore acceptable, ouais?”  However, just when he voiced the latter, it struck him.  He looked forward to seeing her again, indeed.  He saw the moment in his mind's eye: Sam, a fully restored Sam, looking every bit as feminine as she'd sounded on the telephone earlier that week, running to him and hugging him, kissing him on the cheek... and not stopping at that.  He found his cheeks glowing when he got a grip on his unruly mind again, clearing his throat as he spoke on to voice his thoughts for the benefit of his doctor, his voice wavering ever so slightly: “...Mais ensuite, il devient un peu difficile. Parce que j'ne veux pas la quitter quand je suis avec elle. Et je veux ... je veux qu'elle soit la mienne. Je veux qu'elle dise que nous appartenons ensemble. Je veux qu'on soit ensemble, et pas seulement comme des amis.  J'veux être là quand elle se réveille, j'veux être celui qu'elle tient proche quand elle se couche.  Le seul qu'elle fait confiance, le seul dans ses rêves. Et c'est ça ma problème. J'appartiens à Billy. J'aime Billy. Merde, ce serait plus facile si je lui n'aimait pas.  Mais je crois ... je crois que je l'aime aussi.  Ma Samantha, mon ange à moi.  Je veux faire l'amour à elle, je veux être part de sa vie... Je veux me donner à elle complètement, et je ne sais pas que c'est encore possible...  Doctor...”

“You're conflicted, right?  It _is_ a difficult choice, with on the one hand the man you've basically spent two years of your life with and that you clearly love... and on the other hand, the woman you've met just under a month ago and that's taken your heart by storm...”

“Que fais-je?”, he asked helplessly, and the doctor sighed softly.

“I can't tell you what to do – you have to decide what's right for yourself.  I can only... help by asking you the right questions...”, she said, and Gabriel nodded eagerly.

“Mon Dieu, tout ce que vous pouvez faire pour m'aider à prendre logique du présent... tout qui va me faire sentir de moins comme si je ai merdé les choses de nouveau...  Any damn thing...”

“Okay, so... simplest question first, perhaps?”  Gabriel nodded, feeling miserable.  “...If you see yourself as an old man, who's there with you?  Your current partner, mister Jameson, or miss Tennant?”  He closed his eyes for a second, allowing his mind to think of whatever vision of the future it could conjure, but nothing came to mind, and he groaned.

“...Okay, I don't know if it's the hangover or just because I'm a fuckin' _pessimist_ or something, but I don't know.”

“Okay, well... then, imagine it the other way around.  Imagine them both leaving.  Who would you miss the most?”

“...Sam, no doubt...”, he admitted before staring at his hands, which were shivering slightly.  Looking up again, at Billy's side of the room, he contemplated the depth of the trouble he was sliding into.  “...J'suis dans la merde, non?”, he asked weakly, and the doctor shook her head.

“I wouldn't say it like that, Gabriel... sure, it might not be an easy decision to make, and it'll upset some people, most of all the one that you _don't_ prefer, but in the end it's best to decide.  If it's a clean decision-”

“Doctor Hayakawa, how long d'you know me again?  Ten years, right?  Then you oughta know none of my decisions are exactly clean...”, Gabriel said feebly, his head throbbing as if to predict the trouble his future held for him.


	11. What you gonna do (make a make a move)

“...Sam, your telephone's ringing again!”, Damien called from the kitchen of his home, where Sam was staying for the final night before she had to return to her base again: it was from his comfortable couch that the pyro had to peel herself in order to walk to the dining room, where she'd left her purse.  “...I think you missed the call-”, her brother offered, walking in from the kitchen with a plate and a dishtowel in his hands, and she waved him off.

“I understood that much already, thank you, Damien.”

“So, who was it?  Mister Parnell to praise you personally?  That Administrator woman of yours, to ask you your measurements?  ...Your friend?”

“Archie only called this afternoon, why would he call again?”, Sam asked, and Damien snickered.

“Your _other_ friend?  The one that thought it'd be a good idea to send you a basket of nondescript _toffee_?”, he spoke, and she rolled her eyes.

“First of all, it wasn't toffee, it was _caramel_ ; secondly, he'd made it himself; and thirdly-”

“And thirdly, that nurse was nearly _fired_ because they contained alcohol.”, Damien said, to which Sam reacted drily.

“Yes, well, she was stealing my caramel, and who even eats _three_ in the same sitting?  ...And fourthly, then, Gabriel just misses me, and he wanted to send me a gift no one else could top.”

“Because you two are obviously just friends.”, Damien said, causing Sam to roll her eyes again, this time with more emphasis and a sigh added for extra effect.

“Because he's got too much bloody time on his hands, and I prefer him making caramel to him lighting the entire base on fire because he's bored and he misses me!  ...Oh god, Damien, please lay off the insinuations?  I mean, okay, I do like Gabriel, and yes, I am attracted to Gabriel, but he is _seeing someone_ and I'm still _not okay_.”, she said, poking her finger against her brother's chest somewhat playfully as she spoke for extra emphasis, a feat he eagerly mirrored when he answered.

“And I told _you_ , Sammy, dear, _no one is ever truly okay_.  Besides, you never deny that you harbor more than just friendly feelings for the man-”  Blinking, Sam realized that her brother was right.  She'd told him dozens of times that there was nothing going on between her and Gabriel, but she hadn't ever said that she didn't feel anything more towards Gabriel.

“...Well, then, now I do!”, she said, crossing her arms and very nearly pouting if she didn't have the common sense to at least not make a face at her brother, who shook his head and walked back to the kitchen door.

“Too little, too late, Sam – besides, even if you _weren't_ the world's most lousy liar, I'd still see it in your eyes and your smile.  Now go on, check who it is.”, he said, walking back into the kitchen to further empty the dishwasher, leaving Sam to check the call she'd gotten.  The caller had left her a voicemail message, that she listened to gladly.  It featured the soft din of a bar in the background, with voices sounding distant but clearly present in the room – Sam's heart squeezed when she identified the voices as Yaroslav's, Dell's, Archie's, even Arsène's and Siegfried's – but then the caller spoke up and she blinked.

_“...Yeah, uh, Sam, this's Grant Dillinger, y'know, RED's engie.  Ah'm sorry if'n yeh were expectin' Gabriel's voice – ah'm usin' his cell t'call yeh now.  He's, uh... well, ah think y'know him well 'nough to know what state he's in now...”_ , the engineer said shyly, which told Sam he'd been drinking heavily again.  _“Okay, ah don't know how much time ah have, so ah'll keep it short.  Sam, ah think we need t'have a li'l heart-tuh-heart when yeh're back at the base.  Over at your side – don't want yeh comin' over t'RED side jus' yet, Gabriel might have a heart attack.  's About-”_   The message was cut off there, but Sam could easily guess the continuation.  It was clear that Gabriel had become worse during her absence, and that was a source of worry to the engineer of his team, whom Gabriel had a better relationship with than the others and who he'd mentioned was the only one on both teams he _hadn't_ slept with apart from her.  Sighing, she pushed the redial button.  The phone was answered on the second ring.

_“Sam?”_ The din in the bar had died down a little more, which indicated that the men were into their poker game – but it didn't sound like Grant was participating.  Instead, it almost sounded like he stood at the door, as if hiding the fact that he was getting a call.  However, Sam didn't mind for the man's reasonings: he got to the matter at hand instantly, skipping idle greetings, which prompted her to do the same.

“Yes, Grant.  Okay, your message got cut off, but okay.  I'll be back on base tomorrow evening, around eight, can we still meet then?”

_“Sounds like a good idea.  Ah'll come 'round at, say, nine, give yeh time t'settle in an' give the rest'a yer team time to get used tuh th'sight of yeh.  Gabriel told me a li'l and I think them eight colleagues of yers are gon' have 'emselves heart attacks too when they see yeh.”_   Upon hearing it, Sam chuckled and shook her head.

“Don't believe everything Gabriel said.  My cup size is _not_ DD, he'd love for the world to believe that, and I do _not_ look like a supermodel-”

_“Yeah, an' all we guys see is th'occasional waitress at the bar – yeh might not be a supermodel, Sam, pardner, but yeh're gon' look like one tuh any one of 'em.  Not t'mention Gabriel.”_   The mention of her friend had Sam smile, something that caused Damien, who now appeared to have completely processed the dishwasher's contents, to raise an eyebrow as he passed by her on his way to the living room.

“...Yeah, well, _his_ opinion I don't mind all that much.  But the lechers like Theo, Chris, Tavish, Graeme – _especially_ Graeme, he's been in Gabriel's bed more than in his own if I can take Archie's word for it...”

_“Sam, ah gotta go.  Nine tuhmorrow, awrighty?”_ , the engineer said hastily all of a sudden, and Sam rolled her eyes.  It sounded like an evasion, clear and simple, but she was going to let the engineer get away with it to save on her telephone bill.

“Yes, nine tomorrow.  Grant, can I talk to Gabriel?”, she asked quickly, only for the man to sigh.

_“Ah'd love t'let yeh do tha', Sam, but he's... he ain't here.  He were drunk 'fore we even left.”_ Another sigh followed.  _“Gabe's been drunk most'f this week, 'cept when he were talkin' tuh yew on the phone.  Not battlin'... it ain't so good for his mind.”_

“Did he light anything on fire?”, Sam asked, suddenly feeling anxious, and Grant fortunately answered negatively.

_“'s lucky he picked 'drinkin' 'imself intuh a stupor' over 'lightin' sheeyit up'.  Look, Sam, girl, ah'll tell yeh everything t'morrah evenin', okay?  If'n Gabriel notices ah took 'is phone...”_   His voice was nervous, and it took Sam no effort at all to imagine Gabriel, drunk and upset, to read into the situation wrongly and go after Grant.

“Tomorrow evening, then.  I don't want you hospitalized.”  She ended the call and sighed, putting her cellphone in her pocket before joining Damien.

“...I take it it was that Gabriel again?”

“It wasn't Gabriel, it was his team's engineer Grant.  Apparently Gabriel's been drinking heavily this week.  Drunk almost every day.  Grant wanted to have a little talk to me about it.”  Damien nodded slowly, his eyes once again getting that 'putting-ducks-in-rows' expression that told Sam he was getting more thoughts than even his brain could handle, before licking his lips and carefully speaking up.

“...You know, I'm starting to think you're right about those caramels.  ...Do you still have some?”

“Yes, but you aren't getting any of them.  Gabriel made them for _me_ to enjoy.”  As if to emphasize the point, she pulled the basket that she had standing on the ground next to the sofa closer and ate one of the caramels slowly, savouring the rich taste of the sticky substance and the rush of mouth-warming, sweet vanilla gin that followed.  The note had simply said two sentences – _'Hope you like 'em.  Finished the rest of the bottle so we at least shared one drink these weeks.' –_ but the sentiment it conveyed was much more complicated than that.  Her friend missed her – and if it weren't for their telephone calls, the caramels, and the near-constant company of either Damien or doctor Harvey, she would've missed him just as badly, she was sure.  No matter what everyone thought.

“...Sammy, that's _unfair_.  If I remember correctly, _I_ was the one to teach you sharing is caring-”

“Yes, and if _I_ remember correctly, you only taught me that so I'd share the cupcakes I made with dad with you for your study sessions.  I'm sorry, Damien, but these caramels are meant solely for me, and I'm not sharing.”

“...Oh, okay, fair enough, I guess I'll just have to wait until you're asleep...”, Damien joked, which resulted in Sam giving him a firm poke in the side, causing him to chuckle – he'd never been able to resist laughing when she did that, not when he was a teenager and not now, and Sam conveniently used the fact that he started tickling her in return to forget her worries about Gabriel.

“...Son?”  Gabriel opened one eye to see Grant stand next to him, looking at him with a look that was both worried and amused.

“Myeah?”  His voice sounded gritty and low – which also was no wonder, considering the amount he'd drunk the previous evening.  'J'te jure, Gabriel, sais-tu encore ce que tu fais toi-même?', he scolded himself mentally as the rest of the room slowly came into view again, which tied in with Grant's remark seamlessly.

“...Found yeh standin' here.  Sleepin' upright.  Gotta be a first.  ...An' ah think yer caramel's failed...”, he said, indicating the skillet in front of him that harbored a solid black mass with the spoon stuck in it.  Slowly, Gabriel's sleep-riddled mind started to piece together what had happened.  He'd woken up somewhere in the night, not due to a nightmare but because he'd had to pee, and when he saw the kitchen he'd somehow decided to make caramel... but he seemed to have fallen asleep during the process.

“Ah, _merde_...”, he groaned, taking the skillet and dumping it into the trashcan.  The fire had a safety feature, so it'd been off for a couple of hours already, which was enough for the heat to dissipate, but the solidified, charred mass that was supposed to have been caramel couldn't be dislodged from the skillet or the spoon anymore.  It had fused.  Nothing but a strong acid could dissolve it – and that would dissolve the pan and the kitchen utensil as well, so it was futile.  “...Merde...”, he reiterated, rubbing a hand over his face before turning to Grant.  “...So what time's it?”

“Seven thirty, son.  Yeh're lucky ah came in fer an early breakfast.”

“...Comment pourrais-je même m'endormir debout? Je devais indubitablement à arrêter de boire tant que ça ... quoi la prochaine, je commence à me balader tout nu ou quoi? Ce serait horrible.”  He looked at Grant and groaned softly.  “...I'm lucky I even wore anything when I got outta bed.  Jesus... _Sainte Mère_ , qu'il se sent comme je mangeais d'la sciure pour le dîner hier soir...”

“Ah don'' know what yeh ate, Gabriel.”, Grant admitted truthfully, which caused Gabriel to remember what had preceded his falling asleep.  The entire day without Sam, knowing that in less than forty-eight hours, he'd see her again... it'd been torture, any way he looked at it, and it seemed to be natural for him to drink a little to ease the nerves away.  And of course, a little had become a lot, and a lot had become...  “Two bottles, ah'm guessin'...  Well, son, yeh're lucky yeh drink tha' cream shit an' not straight up gin... or yeh'd be dead in yer bed.”, Grant said, shaking his head.  “...Ah reckon we need a li'l talk.”

“Yeah, well, I'll talk all you want, mon ami, when I'm feelin' less like something a horse dumped on the floor and more like an actual _human being_ again.  I'm gonna go brush my teeth, shave, shower, put something remotely okay on... and maybe eat a bite, I feel like I'm runnin' on empty.”  His hands shook slightly as he walked off, back to his room, to find Billy look at him as he came in.

“...Where'd you go off to in tha middle'a the night?”, he asked accusingly, causing Gabriel to groan.

“Long fuckin' story, Will.  Don't worry, I didn't sleep somewhere else.  ...Sainte Mère, I smell like a sewer, what the hell did I even _do_ in that toilet?”

“I don't believe ya, Gabe – ya ain't even _touched_ me fer a week now!”, Billy said, and Gabriel groaned again, louder this time.

“Will, j'te jure, ne t'inquiètes pas, j'étais ici la plupart de la nuit, et ensuite j'suis allé à la cuisine pour me faire un p'tit peu d'la sauce caramel.  Nothin' more.  ...I just-”

“Dante, d'you even believe the shit that's comin' outta ya own mouth, man?!”, Billy said, walking over to Gabriel and pushing the pyro against his chest hard, causing him to stagger backwards onto his bed, so the scout towered over him for once.  “Ya been gettin' your rocks off with someone else, fuck it, an' I ain't standin' for it no more!”

“Will, that ain't true!”

“Why should I believe ya?”, the scout said challengingly, and Gabriel blurted out a response before his weary, alcohol-clouded brain could even properly digest what he was saying.

“ _Parce que la seule que je veux maintenant, la seule que j'suis même disposé à séduire pour l'instant, c'est Sam, et elle est si loin de moi!_ ”  Silence fell in the room after that, a silence that was only broken by Gabriel's pained whimper.  “Merde, Will, all I can think about is her.  I don't just want her, or need her, I am _achin'_ for her.  It ain't right of me to wanna do this to anyone – she deserves more, an' so do you... and hell, so do _I_.  I drank a shitload yesterday to just _forget about it_ , and guess what, I didn't forget about it.  And she's comin' home soon, and then she'll be in my reach again... and that makes me afraid of what's gonna happen...”

“D'you wanna... be with her?”, Will asked, and Gabriel nodded.  The truth, no matter how painful, was the least he could give his lover.

“Yeah.  I mean, well, you know... I want her.  In a lot of ways.  Some of which I ain't tellin' you, because I don't want Sam to be murdered over somethin' she has no control over.”  The scout sighed, sitting down on the bed next to him, though a few inches apart, the distance telltale of how troubled he was.  Gabriel didn't mind all that much, he found.  The distance was bound to appear sooner or later, so it was best to get it over with now.

“...I don't understand, Gabe, man... y'ain't never even _been_ with a _girl_.”, Billy admitted, shaking his head, prompting Gabriel to nod.

“I know.  When it starts to make sense to me, I'll let ya know.”  He sighed softly, thinking of all of the possible outcomes.  “...Will, I don't expect you to understand, not when _I_ don't understand.  But it's just... Sam, she... elle me fait sentir mieux. Toi, tu me fais sentir bien, mais elle... elle me fait l'impression que je suis parfait exactement comme je suis - ou que je peux être parfait. C'est simplement différent.”  Seeing Will's look of confusion, he reiterated the sentiment in English: “With you, I feel good – great, even – but with her I feel like I'm perfect, or that I can be.  It's just... different.  And doc Hayakawa said I should make a clean decision, but this is never gonna be clean for anyone, so I-”

“So ya drink yaself away again... yeah, _that_ I understand perfectly, Dante, ya ass.  Well, _fuck_...”, the scout ground out, running a hand through his hair in frustration, looking at Gabriel the next second.  “Can ya believe I'd prefer ya really _had_ cheated on me now?”

“...I can't stop myself, Billy, I really can't.  She's not gonna be able to say no to me forever, what with how she's into me as well.  I just... don't want you to hold that against Sam.  It's _me_ that's fucking things up, like I always do...”  The scout pushed himself up from the bed again and, after a few more seconds of silence and shaking his head, walked outside, probably to find the engineer and confide in him.  'Poor Grant... stuck in the middle of a goddamn _ménage à trois_...', Gabriel mused as he grabbed his hygiene supplies and headed to the showers, muttering soft curses as he went.

 

The closer Damien's car got to the base's gates, the more nervous Sam felt.  The team knew that she was a woman, but would they expect her to look as she did?  Would she get harassed by the less pleasant men of the team?  Would they suddenly treat her differently, with more distance?  And how would the battles go?  Would she still be in shape?

“...You're worrying again, Sammy...”, Damien remarked, and she sighed.

“That obvious, huh?”

“Well, only to your brother.  ...So what are you worried about?”

“Everything.”, she admitted, adding for her brother's ease of mind: “The reaction of my team, and of the RED team, when they first see me.  It might come as a bit of a shock to see their pyrotechnician, who they're used to with no front and no hair, to suddenly have a head full of hair and a filled-out blouse.  What if they treat me differently?  What if they harass me?”  Her voice had become more fearful than she dared admit to herself, and Damien intervened, his voice soothing and his words chosen with great care to calm her.

“They won't treat you any differently.  Sure, maybe at first, they'll not know how exactly to treat you, and there might be a few awkward moments... but you just show those men you're still their pyrotechnician – and the REDs that you're still just as fierce an opponent as before – and no one'll even dare give you the velvet gloves treatment.  ...And what else has you occupied?”, he asked – silently, Sam wondered how her brother had gotten to be such an expert in reading her when they'd basically only seen each other once a year, at Christmas, for the past seven years.

“...Grant.  The RED engineer that called me yesterday, all worried about Gabriel-”

“Is it Grant you're worried about or Gabriel?”, Damien asked shrewdly, and Sam sighed, conceding defeat by raising her hands slightly.

“Okay, yes, you've got me, I am worried about Gabriel more than I am worried about Grant.  I can handle a Georgian engineer that's both shorter and slimmer than I am; six feet and near a hundred kilos' worth of trained pyro?  Not so sure about that... but I don't think I have to fear Gabriel, he's sweet, really.”, she quickly added when her brother looked a little anxious as well.  “...No, Grant just sounded so... so seriously worried on the telephone yesterday...  I dread to think what kind of amounts Gabriel drank all week – or where he got the money to fund it.  Vanilla gin doesn't come cheap around here.”

“Vanilla gin?  Wasn't that...?”, Damien said, and Sam blushed despite herself.

“...Yes, and I'll thank you _very much_ not to look at me like Christmas just came early.  It doesn't mean what you think it means.”

“Of course it doesn't.  He just found a way to share a friendly drink with you over three hundred miles... and he basically spent two days finding out which hospital you were in... and then he sent you a letter that only contained his cell phone number, which you called the second you got it...”

“I _know_ what it looks like, and it's-”

“Exactly what it looks like.  Sam, please, I'm your brother, not an idiot.  I know you're attracted to him, and I know you have feelings for him, no matter if they extend beyond mere friendship.  You're going to sleep with him at least once.  I swear I won't come looking to punch his lights out, especially not since you just told me he's over a head taller than I am.”  They had arrived at the gates to the base at that moment, which slid open automatically.  Damien drove into the parking lot, causing Sam's heart to start pounding again.  The moment of truth had arrived.  “...So, are you ready, Sam?”

“...'No' is not an option.  So yes, I'm ready.  Ready as I'll ever be, at any rate.”

“I'll just help you with your suitcases and then I'd best be off again, I have a meeting tomorrow morning at ten-”

“Damien, you'll never make that one!”, Sam exclaimed, causing her brother to chuckle.

“I was just kidding, I rescheduled the meeting – but I probably should look for a motel around here, I'm not driving back in the middle of the night.  ...So, this is goodbye again, for a long time...”, he said, holding out his hands after having put the last of her three suitcases on the ground next to the car; she didn't need to be told to give him a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“...Yes, for quite a while again... but in two months' time, I think there's a visitor's day at the end of the summer – Theo's mother always comes, he told me, and Archie's mother and some of his brothers will come as well... oh, and I can give you a tour!  And show you my gear...”

“Heh, sounds like it'd be pleasant.  Call me with the exact date as soon as you know, and I'll be glad to come.  ...Be sure not to drop those – it'd be a shame if you'd have to wash all those clothes again, then you'd have nothing to wear.”

“I still have my previous clothes... the T-shirts and shorts...”, she said teasingly, causing her brother to roll his eyes.  “No, but I love these, every single item of them.”  That earned her a look of clear scepticism as Damien questioned softly.

“Even the pleated skirt and the horrendous frilly blouse?”  She made a face before answering him in a light, airy tone.

“ _Especially_ the pleated skirt and the horrendously frilly blouse.  In fact, I love them so much I'll do my best to keep them in perfect condition...”, she answered with a playful wink, and Damien nodded, waving as she walked off into the compound toward the blue door on the far end.  When she turned around again at the door, she was just in time to see the light of his headlights disappear around the corner, past the gate again, causing her to sigh and open the door using her elbow.  The sound of the television set playing from the living room told her that at least some of her team members were in there, but rather than barge in on them yet, she quietly made her way through the corridor carrying her three suitcases.  However, when she passed the door to the medbay, it opened up and Siegfried walked out, clearly not expecting anyone to be in the hallway.  He walked past her before realizing that he did so, turning around when she was already five steps further.

“Zamantha?”

“Siegfried!”, she said softly, smiling broadly as she turned around.  The medic smiled back, his eyes raking over her form approvingly before nodding.

“I zee zhe surgeries vhere a success.  You look wunderbar, meine Freundin.  Sehr... very beautiful, ja...”

“Think it'll cause problems with the others?”, she asked shyly, and the doctor shook his head.

“Zhe ozhers are not goink to be too fazed by your appearanzhes, zhough zhey might give you a few of zhe comments or looks.  But if you do not pay attention to zhem...”  Sam nodded, smiling.  The doctor's advice sounded a lot like Damien's, and it made perfect sense to her.  However, the doctor added after a second's delay: “...But zhere may be more of zhe problem regarding Archie.  Vill you be okay sharink zhe room vizh him still?”

“Well, I don't mind sharing a room with Archie.  I mean, he might get his money's worth in looks, but he wouldn't make any kind of lewd comment.  He's my friend.”

“Ah, speaking of zhe friends-”, Siegfried started – Sam guessed what he intended to say and she nodded gravely, her smile flickering out of existence.

“I know, I got a telephone call from Grant, who is coming to see me later today.  Was it that bad?”

“Only zhe last week.  Ve haven't seen him zhis weekend – er hatte sich gegen die Mittag bereits betrunken, gestern.  Aber... but I can tell you zhis: William, zheir scout und herr Dantan's... _partner_... he vos lookink very deprezhed yesterday.  So zhis means herr Dantan ist... very affeczhed by your absenze.”

“...I'll see what Grant has to say, and then I'll maybe call him.”, Sam admitted, motioning for the suitcases, which led to the medic nodding and allowing her to walk off to her room.

 

At a quarter to nine, when Sam had finished putting the last of her new clothes and shoes into the wardrobe, she straightened herself and mentally prepared for seeing the rest of her team mates.  'They'll be surprised by the change, sure, but they won't behave any differently...  Oh, who am I kidding, of course they will...', Sam mused, biting her lip.  Then, however, the doctor came back to mind – doctor Steinheim's reaction and his words of reassurance – and she smiled again.  '...Doctor Steinheim didn't seem to be looking at me like I'm some curiosity... and Dell won't ever dare make any kind of remark that'd make me feel uncomfortable, he treats me like I'm his daughter – and _I could be –_ and the others... well, do the others really matter that much that I'd lose any sleep over how _they_ react?'  Smile firmly in place, she walked out into the hallway, her step not faltering once as she walked to the living room, opening the door just as she would if she hadn't missed a day of fighting – but, of course, she had missed two weeks, and her appearance was radically different, so when she spoke up in greeting, everyone turned to her.  Dell looked a little pale, and Tavish and Archie both got mild blushes – however, it was Yaroslav that spoke up first.

“...Little pyro?”  She nodded a little shyly, and he got up, slowly walking over to her.  “...Can hug little pyro?”

“Yaroslav, you don't have to ask, of course you can – gently tho- _oof!_ ”  Her words were turned into a sharp exhale as the heavy weapons expert lifted her off her feet into a bear hug that made her feel small and insignificant again, in the best way possible.  When he let her go again, she grinned as the heavy blushed.

“...little pyro is _delicate,_ like flower.”

“Nuh-uh, pardner, this 'ere li'l flower's got some serious thorns on 'er.”, Dell said, smiling as well.  And then, right on cue, the first lewd comment from Theo followed.

“Oi wouldn't mind a hug too-”

“-not going to happen in a million years, Theo.  I'm booked for the rest of my life.”, Sam instantly reacted, causing the rest to laugh loudly – Archie hit the sniper in the shoulder.

“See, that's what ya get for bein' a dirtbag, Theo!  ...Sammy, seriously, ya look like a damn _statue_ by some artist.  Man, those doctahs deserve a bunch'a flowahs for tha work they did makin' you look this amazin'.”  Then, blushing and looking at the other men, he added quickly: “B-but ya still like a sistah to me, don't get me wrong.”

“Yeah, that'd be a shame.”, Sam said, rolling her eyes before turning to Dell.  “I'm expecting Grant in a few, but I wanted to ask you first... how were the past few weeks?”

“D'you mean the battles or the rest?”, the engineer asked delicately, but before Sam could answer, the soldier snorted.

“Lookit her, truckie, d'you think she means the battles?  She _knows_ we did well.  The rest... myeah...”

“Oh, Jane, would'ya git?!”, Dell said somewhat curtly, causing the soldier to grumble and sit back down.  “...We ain't seen Dante at all, if'n thats what yeh're wonderin' about.  Yestehday, he were too drunk t'even show up – Saturday night 'fore that, he were drunk 'fore we even showed our faces, just like old times, when Lander'd just died.  He were mournin'.  Ah don't know what he were mournin', but he were mournin' something.  And Gabriel's form of mournin' is drownin' whatever it is with alcohol an' sleepin' around.  Think he's in trouble over at RED side, which is prob'ly why Grant wants t'have a li'l talk tuh yew.”  Archie meant to speak up – Sam could guess what he was about to say, and obviously the rest of the men could as well – but right then, the bell rang and Sam dashed off with a quick 'goodnight' to the others.  Opening the door, she found the other team's engineer standing there, looking a little nervous.

“Grant, come on in.  I think it'll be best if we talk in my room-”

“Yeah, let's.  An' let's keep this quick – Gabriel was becomin' rowdy, so doctor Hartmann had t'give 'im a li'l somethin'.”  He looked at her with a gaze that conveyed the urgency of the situation a lot better than his words had, and she nodded.

“Okay, this way.”  She ushered the engineer into her room, offering him her desk chair as she tried to liberate Archie's from three layers of dirty laundry and baseball magazines – her hands froze when Grant started speaking, however, as did her heart.

“Look, Sam, yeh gotta know tha' Gabriel told Billy that they're over 'n done, 'cause he wants t'pursue yew.”

“W-what?”  Her mind reeled.  Had Gabriel really told Billy that?  “...Oh my god...”

“Yeah, tha' were mah thoughts 'bout the matter, too.  Wouldn't'a believed it if'n Billy hadn't told me 'imself this mornin', upset outta his damn mind... poor kid.  Not that yew, or even Gabriel, c'n help this happenin', 'course.”

“I just... I... don't even know how to respond... I... maybe I should call Gabriel?”, she asked, and Grant gritted his teeth, shaking his head.

“Right now, he's off tuh Lala-land, an' even if he weren't... ah dunno if'n that's a good idea, Sam, pardner... Gabriel ain't been exactly focused them past few weeks, an' if'n yeh call 'im now, y'might risk missin' yer reintroduction in battle.  ...Naw, yeh're gon' see him 'gain tuhmorrow in battle – an' maybe he comes over t'morrah after battle, too-”

“Oh, that's fine with me.”, Sam readily said, putting her hand over her heart which was beating erratically.  “...Oh lord... I really should have a talk with Gabriel...  I think this...”

“Y'ain't wanna have no relationship with 'im, right?”, Grant asked, and Sam found herself sighing.

“He is a wonderful man and a great friend, and a very attractive man, but... god, it's still only three months since my brother died, only two months since I woke up from the artificial coma to the news of my parents disowning me and my life back in England having ended abruptly.  I'm still healing mentally, even if my body's mostly back to the way it used to be.  I don't think starting a relationship, especially with a man that's got Gabriel's specific needs... I don't think that'd do me a lot of good...”

“So that's a 'no', huh...”, he said, and Sam smiled ruefully.

“That, Grant, is a 'I haven't got a bloody clue how to answer but 'yes' seems to be wrong and 'no' seems to be a lie'.  If Gabriel even asks, you can tell him that.”

“Oh, trust me, 's far as Dante knows, this 'ere conversation ain't took place.  ...Look, ah'll leave yeh to it, leave yeh tuh consider things... just... if'n somethin' does happen, be gentle with 'im.  Not jus' 'cause he might turn right back tuh self-destruction an' arsonry, but 'cause he genuinely is a good man.”

“You don't need to tell me that, Grant, I know he is a good man.  He is an _amazing_ man.  ...Oh god...”, she again sighed as the engineer left, patting her shoulder consolingly before walking off.  Her mind was reeling, so much so that she barely noticed her taking off her clothes and putting on her pyjamas until she lay under the covers of her bed.

“...Yo, Sam, I saw Grant leavin', what 'd he-”  Archie's voice preceded him into the room, causing Sam to whimper under the covers.

“...I don't want to discuss it.”  When the scout started a feeble protest, she reiterated with a little more emphasis: “ _I don't want to discuss it_ , Archie, _please_.”

“Awright... so it ain't anything good he said to ya...  Well, uh, Sam, if ya need me ta knock some sense into Gabriel-”

“...It's the _whole damn universe_ that needs some bloody sense knocked into it...”, Sam muttered before turning around and allowing her weary body to drift off into sleep, dragging her stunned mind along for the ride.

 

Gabriel felt serene, more serene than ever before – almost _hazy,_ really, as if he was floating through the world.  His bed felt like a big white fluffy cloud, the covers like sheets of condensed air, the wet towel against his foreheat like a permanent sheet of dew.  And every breath felt as if he was lifted a little higher into the air.

“...oh, maaaaaaaan...”, he muttered, vaguely aware that he'd been drugged before musing that he really didn't care.  He felt carefree and blissfully oblivious, as if the world was far below him and the thoughts that had dragged him down throughout the day were out of reach forever.  “...J-j'ai... j'n'ai pas me senti aussi heureux depuis ma première rencontre de Sammy...”, he whispered, the words sounding soothing in the silence around him.  The sounds from the hallway, on the other hand, sounded like something from another life: distant and harsh and demanding attention despite that he didn't feel inclined to listen to them.  The slam of a door.  The sound of footsteps walking from one side of the corridor to the other.  People speaking his name.  It didn't matter – it didn't even properly register.

Until, of course, he heard Grant's voice.

“...just spoke to 'er...”  His heart, he felt, vaguely leapt up at the mention of 'her', and his hazy mind had no trouble matching a face to the pronoun.  Samantha.  So she was back.  He'd known she'd be back, if he was honest, but for some reason he hadn't been waiting for her.  Probably the reason was the same why he was now laying back on his bed, smiling softly while thinking about her.  Smiling sadly, too, though he didn't really know what it was about her that made him sad at the moment.

“...und, how vos she?”  The other voice was the medic's, and that was an indication as to where the fuzzy, detached feeling he was experiencing came from.  Gabriel didn't much mind being drugged, even if it now kept him away from his fellow pyro.  There'd be more than enough time to speak to her that week, his mind slowly formulated: both in battle and after battle, they'd have more than enough chances to talk...

“...maybe best if Gabe ain't... at least until the weekend...”, the engineer replied, his tone demure, and the medic evidently answered even more quietly, for Gabriel couldn't make out the man's reply.  “...Thanks fer the help... he protest?”

“No, zurprizhingly, it vos Villiam zhat protested zhe most.”  The medic and the engineer passed his room, because their voices grew louder – at the mention of the scout's name, Gabriel felt a tinge of worry enter his heart again.  Will had protested something – probably the medic's use of drugs on him to keep him calm and happy and compliant... why did that notion hurt?

Gabriel's eyes closed as sleep claimed him again, as it had a couple of times in the past hours, and once again he had a very vivid dream which featured his fellow pyro.  Only this time, instead of sorrow, he could see something more heartwrenching.

He'd lit a fire.

_Oh god... I did it again... I shouldn't do this... I can't, oh merde, non, j'peux pas!_ , he cried out in his dream – to no avail, because the more he spoke, the flames grew, and the more he tried to douse them, the more they spread, until it had grown to the proportions of an inferno, engulfing every millimeter of space around him for as far as he could see.  The heat was overwhelming, and he gasped for breath as smoke billowed around him... until suddenly, he could hear the sound of wings behind him, and the flames flickered.   _W-what the...?_

_'Once you stop fighting, Gabriel... then you'll be in control.  Once you stop fighting, you'll find that all that's keeping it alive is the fight you're putting up.  ...All those failsafes, all those life rafts... don't you see?  All you need is... here...'_ Arms encircled his torso, snaking underneath his own arms and pulling him into a soft, pliant body that smelled like delicate flowers and felt like velvet against his skin.  He found suddenly that he could breathe again, that he could relax and let his arms down again – and he traced the hands that had grabbed a hold of him, finding their form familiar and the gentle whisper in his ear sending an ache through his body.  _'All you need is some divine intervention, mon pécheur_ _bien aimé...'_

_Samantha..._ , he sighed, trying to turn around in his dream to see her face, to see her _restored body_... but as soon as he did, he found himself wide awake, laying in his bed again, his body tingling from the aftereffects of the drug he'd been given and the new sense of need that coursed through his veins.

“...Oh, _merde_...”, he groaned, turning onto his side and pushing aside the sudden urge to relieve the longing, knowing he wouldn't find any relief apart from the affection Sam would give him the moment they saw each other again.


	12. Everytime we meet the earth is shaking (it doesn't matter)

Chapter 11: Everytime we meet the earth is shaking (it doesn't matter)

 

“...How'd ya sleep, Sammy?”, Dell asked the next day, and Sam found herself shrugging.  The truthful answer, of course, was 'badly' – because after what Grant had imparted on her, she'd only been able to dream about her fellow pyro chasing her in full battle gear only to corner her and, instead of swinging his Axtinguisher down, running his hand over her suit and burning it away wherever he'd touched it – but she couldn't tell that to the others.  So she mustered the mental strength from somewhere to smile and answer.

“...I can't believe I've been missing my bed – I'm calling my brother and ordering him to hand-deliver his spare bed here, my back... ouch...”

“Oh, awrigh'.  ...So, yeh ready t'do battle today?”, he asked – fortunately for Sam, Archie answered in her stead.

“Hell, what kinda question's that?  'Course Sam's ready, othawise she wouldn't be here – right, Sam?”, the scout said loudly, and Sam gladly took the escape he offered her, nodding.  “...Hey, uh, Sam, we probably should head back ta our room an' gear up...”, Archie then added, indicating the clock which pointed out that it was almost twenty past seven.

“Oh, wow, I hadn't even noticed.  Dell, see you in ten!”

“Don't miss the start'a yer firs' day of battle, Sam, pardner!”, the engineer called after them, which led to Sam giving him the thumbs up as she and Archie walked through the hallway back to their room.  However, once inside, Archie gently put his hands on her shoulders.

“...'Ey, look, I ain't wanna know what Grant told ya yestahday, but I ain't stupid – this's about Dante an' his crazy shit.  So, what'd he do?”

“...I'm not sure, but apparently he broke it off with Billy to 'pursue me'.”  She meant to add 'whatever he means by it' but she decided against it, since she figured that nobody would believe her pretending she didn't know exactly what her fellow pyro intended.

“Seriously?  I mean, _seriously_?”, Archie said, sounding like he'd been hit on the head with his own bat – considering that he'd been taking a few practice swings when Sam had spoken up, he very well could have – before continuing while giving her a soft hug: “...Aw man, so ya feelin' bad about that, huh?”

“Well, yes, I'd told him I didn't want to come between the two of them.  And now... I don't know what to do, I don't know whether I should hide from Billy – or hide from _Gabriel_ because what is he even going to do – and I _certainly_ don't know what I'm supposed to _think_ about this-”

“Well, ta hell with what ya supposed to think – what're ya feelin'?”, the scout asked, and Sam sighed.

“...I feel like it's wrong and right at the same time.  I'm not against the entire idea of... Gabriel... but after what happened, I haven't got a clue whether this is the right thing to do or not.  I don't feel ready for a relationship – casual sex, sure, but actually having someone depend on me?  What's more, someone like our lovely mister Dantan with all his flaws and all his wonderful charisma-”

“Gabe ain't got _charisma_ , whatever tha hell that is, he's got a big _bonfire_ where his soul's supposed ta go.”, Archie said, which caused Sam to narrow her eyes and hit the scout on the back of his head with the flat of her hand, causing him to yelp and rub the area of impact.  “What was that for?!”

“Gabriel's got a _soul,_ Archie, don't think he doesn't – he's actually a sensitive, shy man when you look past all the swearing and the drinking and the fucking around in every sense of the word...  All of those are walls.  I've got them, too.”, she admitted with a shy smile, and the scout shook his head, grinning as he spoke.

“If ya tryin' ta make me believe ya were shy an' unassuming 'fore all'a this happened to ya, I ain't buyin' it, Sam – but go on.”, he hastily added when she crossed her arms, something she didn't need saying twice.

“...So I've got walls, too.  Ever since I got here, I've readily followed Gabriel in his drinking – well, I try to keep moderation, unlike him – and I've basically become the closest thing to a workaholic there is, and not all of that is who I was before.  I mean, sure, I loved my job as a pyrotechnic, but not enough to basically devote myself to it like I'm doing here.  ...That fire damaged me deeper than my skin and my lungs and my kidneys.  It damaged my heart, my soul... my mind...  I mean, my youngest brother _killed himself –_ I'd spent a few years abroad training, you know, and I was offered a job back in Holland at Enschede, at the fireworks factory there, but... Michael was saying he'd been having bad dreams, dreams that had him poised to fall from a cliff, and I knew how badly he was and so...”

“...So ya turned down a job opportunity for him?”, Archie asked softly, prompting Sam to nod.  She still remembered how much it'd hurt to say 'no' to such a magnificent offer, which would've meant a steady career with a good pay and a lot of perks; but she also still remembered the joy she saw in Michael's eyes when at least _one_ of the people that he cared about and that cared about him wasn't going to go away.

“...Yes, I did – and let me tell you, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.  After that, I started looking for a job in England, which I found with Katchan Fire, where I worked for almost three years.  Michael was doing okay, too.  But then, some stuff happened that forced me to quit, and Michael... saw how much I was suffering, and he understandably suffered along with me.  But I didn't know...”  Sam had to stop to draw a shaky breath at that point, the grief overwhelming her once again, like a shard of ice slowly being pushed into her heart.  “...I had no idea he'd still been having those dreams, and I certainly didn't know they were becoming more and more _welcomed_ by his world-weary mind.  ...W-what you also have to know is that our mother...  She wasn't ever very _loving_ towards me and Michael.  We disappointed her by being interested in sciences.  About a month or two before Michael... did it... he'd gotten a bad report card, and mum hit him, and when I figured that one out... let's just say I said that Michael deserved to be loved.  If not by his mother, then by his sister.  Oh god, I loved my brother, I would've done whatever it took – but he knew that any job apart from the one I'd had would kill the fire in me, and I guess the thought of all that I'd denied myself for his sake added to the burden he was already bearing and... he finally caved and gave in to his depression.  ...The afternoon before he k-killed himself, we went out for a brother-sister afternoon like he loved to do on a Saturday, to escape my mum.  And after that...  Well, you can understand how deeply I was _hurt_.  I still am hurt, even if it's been three months.”

“'Course ya are, Sam, hurt like that don't heal quickly...”, Archie said softly, which coaxed a sigh from Sam as she nodded.

“I'm healing, but I just... don't know if I can break down Gabriel's walls and get the real him out of there, not when I'm in no condition to hold a sledgehammer... not yet, anyway...”

“...Well, I still ain't buyin' it – well, uh, not just 'cause ya say it, at least – but ya could be right... but what are ya gonna do?”

“...Be honest, I guess.  Tell Gabriel that I'm still hurting, still healing, and that I can't give him what he needs when I'm not mentally steady enough myself yet...”

“...An' what are ya gonna do when he don't take 'no' for an answer?”, the scout asked, putting his earpiece on over his baseball cap, and Sam sighed as she zipped up her flame-retardant suit.

“...I can't really say no to him, that's the problem.  Guess I'll just take what he's giving and try to keep my head above the water...”

 

“Dante!”  The exclamation had Gabriel double back to Grant, who sat next to his dispenser sifting through the remains of his teleporter in order to recycle what was still useful.

“Hmmm?”, he said – he didn't bother taking off his gas mask, hoping the engineer would hurry up and explain himself.  Just a mere quarter of a mile away, the battle was in full swing, and he needed to head into the fray again – those were his orders, but he also had heard the telltale sounds of a flamethrower and he knew that Sam would be there.  After two days of not seeing her on the battlefield, he had started to grow desperate, toeing the line set out by the soldier and the engineer regarding his battle performance – and occasionally, when he knew neither man would figure it out, setting his foot deftly _over_.  “Khhhmmnnnnn, Khrrrrrmmt, hhh thmmmmth khhhht hhhhmmm thhmmm, phrrrr phhhmkhhssssh shmmmmmkh...”, he added, a little more impatiently – the engineer looked at him a little annoyedly and finally spoke.

“Ain't no need t'start cursin' at me, Gabe, son.  ...Ah need yeh t'go an' check the west respawn point – placed mah teleporter there but someone on BLU managed tuh git it down – considerin' the speed, ah'm guessin' Arsène's hangin' around there with 'is sappers.  Ah've got mah good ol' shotgun t'keep me safe, son, y'ain't gotta worry 'bout me.”, he added when Gabriel lifted his mask away from his mouth to speak in protest, causing the pyro to sigh.

“Okay, fine, I'll head over there – even though it's probably nothin' and Arsène already fuckin' went back to helpin' his team advance...”, he said, straightening his mask before running back to their primary respawn point, taking a narrow rock-strewn passage to the respawn point the engineer had meant, slowly walking into the center of the enclosure and emptying half of his flamethrower on the surroundings.  “...Mmmmrrth... shhhhmmmshh hmm phhhhssssshth hhhph thhhmmm...”, he muttered, shaking his head and lowering his flamethrower.

The next second, however, flames engulfed him so quickly and so absolutely that he gasped for breath.  He tried to turn around but his knees didn't cooperate properly and so he tried to run away, but the spurt of flames followed him, and with a muffled curse, he tried to take his Axtinguisher but found the heat making his body cramp up.  “Shhhhth, Shmmmmmm!”, he said as he sagged to his knees, dropping sideways from there – through the blurry lenses of his gas mask, the other pyro came into view, looking more or less as she had before her surgeries due to her flameproof suit, but when she kneeled down and lifted her gas mask off, he could see the short but very becoming hair on her head and the way her face now looked radiant and he grinned despite himself.

“...Gabriel, after battle, meet me here, okay?”, she said softly beside his ear, and he groaned something that hopefully confirmed that he'd be there before closing his eyes and drifting away until he felt firm ground under his feet again and his body felt cool again, indicating that he'd been fully restored by the respawn machine once more.  The first thing he did was head for the engineer, finding him refilling his shotgun with some shells he plucked from his dispenser.

“...Hhhhmth vhhhsssh Shhmmmmnnnthhhh.”

“Sam, huh?  ...Yeah, figured 's much when Arsène showed his Frenchie mug 'ere disguised as yew.  Man seems t'keep fergettin' that the first thing yeh do when y'come an' have a li'l talk tuh me is check fer his presence.  ...So?”, he asked when Gabriel sagged against the dispenser, lifting his mask to take some deep breaths.

“...Well, her Backburner works just as well on the back of an unsuspecting member of RED as mine does on the unaware BLU backs...”, he said, scratching between his shoulderblades as if feeling the heat of the flames hit there again.  “...And those surgeries made her even more quick on her feet, j'te jure.”  But as he spoke, he got a broad grin on his features despite himself.  He felt _proud_ of Sam, _his_ Sam – he considered her his, no matter what opinion the rest of the world had.  “And after battle, ya have to excuse me.”

“Aha, ah see...”, Grant said with a reserved smile, and Gabriel groaned.

“Well don't _you_ sound enthusiastic, Grant, mon ami...”, the pyro said, heavy sarcasm dripping from his voice.  He lifted his flamethrower and sloshed the gasoline around before speaking up again: “Any more enthusiasm off you an' I might have to start fuckin' thinking you're _against_ me an' Sam even speakin' at all.”

“Well, son, ain't against it per se, but y'gotta understand y'ain't been on yer best behavior in them past two weeks due to 'er, 'specially regardin' Billy – an' don't yeh go denyin' it, we _all_ know it, even over at BLU.”

“Merde, avez-vous vraiment dû commérage avec ton collègue à mon sujet, mon vieux?  ...Well, _fuck_ , I feel _loved_ right now – Grant, espèce d'idiot misérable, si tu fais de nouveau une telle chose, vous pourriez vous réveiller à l'autre bout du bâtiment nu et ligoté sur une chaise, que diable!  And I ain't fuckin' kidding!  One more _word_ to Dell and-”

“I didn't talk to Dell, I spoke to Sam 'erself, damn yew!”, Grant said, looking in horror at the pyro after he'd spoken, and Gabriel felt faint.

“...You spoke to Sam about me?  ... _You spoke to Sammy 'bout me?!_ ”

“N-now look, pardner, ah only did it 'cause ah'm worried 'bout yeh-”, the engineer defended himself, looking about as white as a sheet, but Gabriel was past noticing that.

“You don't have the right to tell Sammy!  _I_ was s'posed to tell her!  Merde... putain... j'te tue, Grant, j'te jure...”  Taking a deep, shaky, steadying breath, he glared at the engineer, who looked like he sorely wished his dispenser could refresh underwear as well.  “I swear to God, if you so much as _peep_ to _anyone else_ today, I'm knocking you out and sending you to HQ in neat little _cubes_ , vieux, t'comprends?”  Running off, he didn't notice his direction until he ended up in the west respawn, which was deserted again since most of the fighting was now concentrated closer to the main base.  There, he sagged down onto one of the benches, tossing his gas mask across the room with a loud curse.  “ _Putain!!_ ”  He'd expected that he would have the chance to explain things to Sam himself: how much he'd missed her, how he'd relapsed back to his previous levels of drinking, the talk with Billy... the realization that he wanted her in his life as more than just a friend by the sidelines...  “Je sais que ce n'est pas peine perdue, mais Grant lui a effrayée sans doute, et comment vais-je la faire se sentir détendue désormais autour de moi?  ...How am I supposed to explain things to her now?”, he wondered out loud, and to his surprise a soft voice came from outside the respawn.

“...Start by coming outside?”

“Sammy!”, he said, running out to meet her with a smile, which she answered.  He wanted to pick her up, spin her around, kiss her until they were both dizzy, and so much more, but all he did was look her over from a distance of a few feet.  “...ah, que t'es belle, si belle, Sam...”, he admitted, and she laughed lightly.

“Just the thing I've been waiting to hear from you.  _Now_ I can bear any lewd remark you have to make this weekend for your team's sake.  ...I missed you.”, she said, blushing ever so slightly and biting her lip, making Gabriel's heart ache even more to just close the distance and pull her close and _not let her go again_...  “Look, Gabriel, I heard... about Billy, and all, and-”

“I am _not really Grant's biggest fan right now_.”, the RED pyro ground out, only for Sam to shake her head.

“Look, Gabriel, it's a good thing he came to me.  I've... had time to think about it.  Not that I needed to _think_ about what I _feel_ , of course, but... Gabriel, you have got to know that I can't give you my heart just yet.  I'm not even sure if I can _ever_ give my heart again, to anyone.”  Her eyes were sad, Gabriel noticed, and her shoulders had slumped: before he even knew properly what he was doing, he took the two steps closer he needed to hug her, leaning down to kiss her on top of her new hair.

“Sam, whatever ya _are_ willing to give, I'm happy to take.  ...Oh merde, j'ai pas voulu que cela se sonne si sale...”, he said once he realized just how his words sounded, only for Sam to chuckle and shake her head.

“Don't pretend you don't want me.  A-and I want you, too, it's just... I want to be honest with you.  I can't offer you something that's burnt.  Not you.”

“Ah, Samantha, we're both burnt in some way or other... I don't mind-”

“But I want to give you _all_ of me, Gabriel, not just the parts that are all healed up.  You deserve someone wholesome, like Billy is, not... not someone that's struggling for every slightest smile like me.  Simply because you're struggling, too.”  Just as Gabriel meant to kiss her again, the horn sounded, signifying the start of a new battle – both pyros groaned, but Gabriel did so more loudly than Sam.

“...Eh, bien, j'te vois ce week-end, donc?”

“You bet your six-foot-two arse you will, Dantan.”, Sam admitted with a wink – she meant to walk off, but Gabriel grabbed her wrist and pulled her against him again, tilting her head up to kiss her deeply and needfully, expecting her to be surprised.  Which she was, for a second, after which she tangled one hand in his hair and kissed him back with force.  When they pulled apart, despite their kiss only having lasted three seconds at most, they were both out of breath and blushing wildly.  “... _well then_...”, Sam said, and Gabriel found himself grinning at her just like she was grinning at him.

“Consider that an appetizer.”

“Damn it, this weekend better be an all-you-can-eat buffet, Gabriel.”, Sam said before pulling her gas mask over her face and running back to her own team, while he ducked back into the respawn to pick up his gas mask again – the broken lens would normally make him groan, but this time he simply shook his head and hung the gas mask from his belt.  It wouldn't be the first time he went a round without his mask, and he preferred to let Grant stew in his own juices until that evening.

 

_“Hit 'em with a left-”_

“LEFT!”

_“Hit 'em with a right-”_

“RIGHT!”

_“Hit 'em with a left-”_

“Hah!”

_“Hit 'em with a right, it's a fight, it's a fight, yeah-”_

“Come-on-now-you-bloody-knee...”, Sam ground out, swinging her knee up as if she were pulling a man into it with his head, alternating between left and right to the rhythm of a song.  She'd started sweating basically from the first minute of her one-hour exercise regime of martial arts-inspired fitness, but the rewards would be reaped when she was done, she knew.  The music echoed slightly through the shower area.

 _“See, I'm the king of the ring-ring, ring the bell and I'm comin' out swing-swing, swing it left, swing it right to the ding-ding, hit the ground and he bounce up like a spring-spring...”_ , the music said, and Sam switched from her knees to downward punches, using the routine of the exercise to muse about the week's fighting she'd finished that afternoon.  The battles had seemed extra fierce – she'd had a few one-on-one fights with John, the RED soldier, and a couple of lovely melee-only bouts with Graeme, who had proven to be her better almost always.  And, she thought, there had been a few _very_ fiery showdowns with Gabriel as well.  She'd killed him about as much as he had killed her, and in just about as many ways.  His Axtinguisher, her fireaxe, both their Backburners, his Detonator – that had been a remote kill she _still_ was apprehensive about and hadn't told anyone about – her shotgun... she'd even delivered a roundhouse kick into his face, breaking his nose, before actually chopping his head off, and when he caught sight of her after that-

The music changed again, and Sam kicked up her legs again, exhaling sharply whenever she lifted her knees and inhaling quickly in between, a steady rhythm to her exercise and to her heartbeat.  She loved the fitness routine, it calmed her heart while at the same time pumping a different kind of adrenalin through her system.  It was exhilarating, to say the least, and she sang along with the music enthusiastically.

“Left!  ...pfff- Right!  Left... haaa- Right!  Left!  Right!  Left!”  The music ended, and Sam put her hands onto her knees, breathing hard.  Every muscle in her body ached and she still had one last power track and the abdominal muscle training to look forward to – 'woohoo...', she mused sarcastically at the prospect of five minutes of pure stomach agony – but she knew that stopping too long meant risking her muscles cramping and the entire benefit of the exercise regime being lost, so she didn't hesitate and took up her basic stance again when the music started.

 _“I'm falling, I'm falling from the sky, I keep on falling, I'm falling for your love... should I give up and walk away, keep looking for a better day?  I'm falling, I'm falling for your love...”_   The music kicked in and Sam quickly fell into the series of punches she was supposed to do.

“Six-five-four-three-two-one-slip-ha... six-five-four-three-two-one-slip-hah...”, she muttered, smiling slightly when she felt the routine of the exercise kick in again, allowing her to think again on Gabriel.  Their short talk that Wednesday had given her peace of mind again – though his kiss... not so much.  It was clear that his words before that kiss, about his being willing to take whatever she could offer, weren't spoken idly.  “Pfeh...”, she snorted, her punches faltering for a second before she gritted her teeth and redoubled her efforts even as her shoulders protested from all the punches that had preceded it.  Gabriel had sounded his usual brand of dirty-but-sincere when he'd said those words, showing he was honest as well when he said he thought he could live with just her body and no certainty of her returning his love.  “It-is-not-fair-Ga-bri-el-you-should-have-some-one-bet-ter...”, she ground out softly as she finished the final series of punches of the song – sixty-four punches and crosspunches, non-stop – her entire upper body aching and her heart joining in effortlessly.  The thought of her hurting Gabriel was hard, almost upsetting her stomach as well.  The thought of seeing tears spill from those eyes that usually looked at her like she was a star fallen from the sky and landed in his scarred hands...  “...Shit...”, she sighed, her punches faltering again at the end of the song.  Suddenly, she questioned her decision to allow Gabriel and her to just be honest.  So distracted was she, that the song for her ground exercises started before she was even laying down, let alone ready to start; with a soft curse, she dropped to the tile floor, wincing at the cold, and lay on her back for the rapid series of crunches, trying her hardest not to think of her fellow pyro and failing miserably, which also meant that she skipped her cooldown exercises, merely allowing the music to play while she did some quick stretches under the shower before hastily washing and toweling off.  Her pyjamas, laying in the corner, were some of her old ones, and they fell over her form loosely, just the way she preferred it.  However, rather than feel relaxed, she felt slightly agitated, and she hastily walked to her room, intending to have a conversation with her brother over the telephone when she crashed into Yaroslav in the hallway.  The heavy was reading his book – Sam couldn't read the title, so she had no idea what the book was about or even if it was actually in Russian or not – and looked down at her with a smile.

“Little pyro distracted?”

“...A little, yes...”, Sam admitted, smiling slightly for his benefit: however, that only managed to make the man look at her in more worry.  “...Okay, yes, a lot.  I was just going to give my brother Damien a call, this entire business has my head feeling like a highway and my _heart_ feeling like a _football_ -”

“Business... little Sam mean business with Gavriel, da?”, Yaroslav asked, and Sam looked at the man to see him smile ruefully at her.  “...Little pyro should not worry about Gavriel... he drink like coward.”

“But he fights like you do, Yaro – and not just for his job.  He fights with himself, a lot, that's why he drinks so much.”, she said, and he nodded.

“Danti... is troubled man.  Radovan, friend from RED, say... on stradayet piromaniyey – he has... need to set fire.  ...I vse yego pit', vse drugiye yego plokhoye povedeniye, prosto yemu skryvat'sya ot mira...”  Sam didn't understand him when he spoke in his native language – but when he sighed and spoke in his usual broken English, she understood all too clearly: “Little pyro and Gavriel... both have sorrow.  Are... how do you say... staryye dushi – old souls.”

“...Right now, my soul feels about the age of a dinosaur fossil to be honest...”, she said, smiling ruefully up at the heavy who answered by patting her on the shoulder gently.

“Little pyro like Gavriel, da?  ...Danti... also like little pyro.  When little pyro was gone... he have more drinks, show more sorrow.  Now that little pyro is back... he is better, maybe.  Is good for everyone.  ...Well, good night, little pyro.  Sleep well.”, he said, stepping aside to allow her to pass, and she smiled at him, more warmly this time.  He was right, of course: Gabriel had been worse when she was gone, and his kiss had at least indicated that he intended to misbehave with _her_ instead of any other way, that much she could be certain of.

“Goodnight, Yaroslav, and enjoy the book.”

“Blagodaryu vas.”, he said, already walking on to his own room which lay at the end of the hallway, opposite the door that led to the separate shower rooms where she'd washed.  Smiling, Sam walked to her room, picking up one of her own books, deciding to read until it was time for bed, meanwhile musing that her friend knew exactly what to say to make her worries fade for the time being – and all other thoughts became insignificant when she dove headfirst into one of the collection of gothic novels she'd picked up.

 

He looked at his food with little appetite, taking another bite of the salad, chewing without tasting and eating without really minding what had passed his lips.  The rest of his team were looking at him, wavering between mercilessly teasing him about the obvious way he was looking forward to finally seeing Sam again outside of battle and keeping their mouth shut because they'd all experienced his short temper first-hand one way or other.  In the end, only Grant was brave enough to speak up.

“...Gabe, son, yeh sure y'are doin' okay?”  The pyro looked up and rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, I'm doin' good.  Now scram.”

“Well, it's just, y'ain't eatin' yer food...”, the engineer tried again, causing Gabriel to groan and glare at the other man, causing him to pale.

“I'm not fuckin' hungry, that's all.  Now, if ya got nothin' better to do than _gawk_ at me, you an' the rest of this sorry fuckin' bunch... _espèces de connards, tous..._ ”

“Danti, please, haff respect.”, Radovan said loudly; Grant nodded and leaned closer to the pyro to speak more confidentially.

“...Gabriel, what's Sam gonna think of yew if'n yeh-”

“ _Me taquines pas, vieux, j'te peux tuer désormais, j't'avoue-”_   The engineer paled and moved away, leaving Gabriel to poke violently among the remaining tomato parts and grated carrot, sighing.  He had never felt as nervous as he did at that moment, feeling like breathing was a step too far and eating was _ten steps_ out of bounds: somewhere far off, he knew that it was ridiculous, that only lovesick teenagers acted the way he did, but he couldn't care less about others' opinions as long as he had Sam in his arms by the end of the evening.

“'Ey yow, suckahs!”, Archie exclaimed as he waltzed into the bar, preceding the rest of the BLU team: Gabriel perked up and looked at the doorway.  Dell and Jane came in first, followed by Theo, who was being pushed forward by an exasperated-looking Arsène; Tavish shook his head as well as he walked behind the spy, though it was unsure who met with his displeasure.  Finally, Yaroslav and Siegfried entered, and Gabriel's heart leapt up, because now she _had_ to follow... but she didn't follow the medic, and he sighed deeply.

“...I zhink herr Dantan ist not very happy...”, Siegfried said – it was clear from the man's tone that he was joking, but Gabriel only mustered a groan – he couldn't be angry at Sam's medic, not the way he was angry at Grant for overstepping the bounds of his confidence.  “Ach, she ist only a little late-”

“Siegfried, you should not give Danti trouble – Gavriel, little pyro is outside, she is just shy.”  Sure enough, when the heavy went outside, he entered again pulling the other pyro along gently.

All at once, it felt like the air was sucked out of the room.  Sam was – there were no other words for it – _radiant_.  Her smile was broad, though a little less-than-secure, and her eyes shimmered softly in the dim light of the bar, and her body... Gabriel very nearly drooled, wishing the salad he had in front of him was a steak, or something else equally substantial, so he could explain away his sudden hypersalivation.  However, he wasn't the first one to speak up, he found.

“Oh holy fuckin' _'ell_ , how'd you BLU wankahs end up with such a stunnah an' we end up with nutty-as-a-squirrel Gabe?!”, Chris – his own team's sniper – of course had to be the one to open his ugly mouth.  Gabriel glared at the man, rising from his seat.

“I'm gonna kill ya if you even _look_ at Sammy like that again, piece of fuckin' koala shit – and if ya call me 'nutty' again, I'm cuttin' off your nuts and bakin' them-”

“Gabriel, there's no need...”, Sam said, smiling as she walked over to him and put a hand on his lower arm, squeezing lightly in order to get him to relax, which he did after one final glare at the Australian.  Chris gritted his teeth and glared back, reacting spitefully though he still gave Sam a grin.

“First time oi saw Dante all up in arms over any sheila – you must be some fuck to get 'im over 'is little boyfriend.”  Turning to Gabriel, the sniper snorted haughtily and looked him over before adding: “Bettah not miss this time over, Dante, or someone else-”

“Chris, I'll put it in your own language so you'll understand: piss off, wankah, an' go fuck yourself in the bum afore some other buggah does it for you.”, Sam quickly intervened before the sniper could finish his sentence and Gabriel could react nonverbally.  Her horribly accurate imitation of Chris' Australian accent, delivered with a lazy grin, fortunately caused the sniper to finally shut up.  The Australian gave Gabriel a last look and the RED pyro gritted his teeth, walking up to Chris and leaning closer to speak softly.

“Listen up, connard, if you don't keep your fuckin' mouth shut an' your eyes to yourself, I don't care what the Administrator says or does, but you die in your bed, slowly and painfully.”  After that, looking more than a little pale, Chris chose to wisely walk away, leaving Gabriel to take the five or so steps that separated him from his BLU counterpart.  “Now, Sammy, hun, how've ya been?”

“Oh, for Christ's sake, Gabriel, where's that enthusiasm?”, Sam said with a broad grin, gladly allowing Gabriel to throw his arms around her, chuckling as he did so, and lift her off her feet in a bear hug, swinging her around and causing her to giggle madly.  “Ah, there we go, hehehe...”  Having her pressed close to him made Gabriel's blood feel like fire in his veins, and so he put her down more quickly than he wanted to, giving her a clearly longing look before doing what the rest of the teams expected: turning to them with a broad grin, he spoke loudly and lewdly.

“Hell yeah, she's got a front like an airbag!”  Sam rolled her eyes at that, but she didn't scold him.

“Thanks for the comparison – good to know nothing changed when I was gone, you're still just as dirty as two weeks ago.”

“Oh, Sammy, ma chère, don't you know me by now?  _Even dirtier_ than two weeks ago!”, he said, ushering her to the table where he'd been sitting nursing his salad, gently seating her in the chair Grant had occupied before; the engineer protested feebly, though he gave up his protests in record time, Gabriel mused.  Once they had all properly ordered their food, Gabriel handing his half-filled plate of salad back to the waitress and ordering a hamburger special instead, he leaned closer to Sam and spoke softly to her: “...T'm'as manqué tellement....  I am so glad ya walked in when you did, I was about to go stormin' back to base to get you.”

“Well, you would've found me pretty fast, I was just out the door... that nervous, huh?”, she asked, and he smiled at her, feeling as if he was turned inside out just by the look in her eyes, all his deepest and sincerest desires thrown out for the world to see, but all he could do was nod.

“T'as aucune idée.  Mais ce soir... je t'ai promis, j'ai pas oublié-”, he said with a grin that was amplified and reflected from Sam's end – along with that, below the table, she reached for his hand and squeezed it.

“Oh, I didn't forget either.  But first we eat, and then we relax, and then... well, I think we'll both be skipping breakfast...”, she said, and his heart didn't just leap up, it felt like it left his body and the _earth_ behind altogether.  Squeezing her hand back, he nodded.

“Bien d'accord.   J'te promets, ma nuit et moi-même sont les tiens.”  Next to him, Arsène had just sat down, and the spy looked at him questioningly, but he was past noticing it.  First dinner, Sam had said, then a leisurely evening with their teams, and after that, the night was _theirs._

 

“Okay, guys, this has to be my last hand!”, Sam said, laughing lightly.  Next to her, Gabriel instantly perked up – her fellow pyro had been playing but he'd wisely folded out of the majority of hands, instead choosing to watch her play and occasionally, under cover of the table, putting his hand on her knee to just rest there or lazily run his fingertips along the still-sensitive skin of her joint, sending small almost-electrical shivers through her skin straight to her heart.  Neither of them had drunk much – Gabriel had matched each of her three shots of vanilla gin, but no more than that, so he probably didn't even feel the mild buzz she did – but nevertheless she felt like she was riding a high that was very firmly caused by the man next to her, who held such promise in his every touch and look and who now nodded softly.

“Yeah, me too.”  If the fact that they were both bowing out of the game was any reason for the rest of the men to raise an eyebrow about, it didn't show except maybe due to Grant's expression of slight embarrassment.  “Okay, uh, who's turn is it to deal?”

“Aw _hell_ , Dante, try an' keep yer attention with the game.”, Dell said, motioning for Pierre to push the cards towards him and prompting a blush out of the tall pyro; Sam nudged her own team's engineer gently.

“Don't tease Gabriel, Dell, he can't help being distracted-”

“Y'ain't no better, Sam, pardner – y'ain't even won half'f them past hands.”, he retorted, causing Sam to blush a little less subtly than Gabriel had moments before, leaning closer to the engineer to answer his sentiment.

“Yeah, well, not without a very good reason – besides, why are you complaining, all of the games I lost, you won.”  She gave Gabriel a dazzling smile when he handed her the two cards – and when she looked at them, she had to nearly chew off her lip to keep from grinning.  The ace of hearts and the ace of spades.  After putting in her blind bet, she watched the rest of the men add theirs to the pile and then quietly raised.  Gabriel raised an eyebrow but didn't argue when his turn to follow came, after which he turned over the first three cards to reveal another ace along with a three and a queen.  Gabriel was the one to raise in that round – but Sam was so convinced that she'd won that she raised instantly after him, causing the rest of the men at the table to groan and Pierre to fold.  When the time for the showdown came, there were only four still playing – Dell hadn't even made a sound, and Siegfried looked a little pale as he added seventy dollars to the stack but apart from that he didn't seem either phased or thrilled by what he held.  “...Okay, me first?”, Sam asked, turning her cards over.  “Four of a kind – all aces!”

“Aw _hell, pocket aces, should'a known_...”, Dell ground out, tossing his cards back down without revealing them.  Siegfried sighed and revealed that he'd only had the pair of aces that lay open on the center of the table, and then it came down to Gabriel, who rolled his eyes and then sighed, shaking his head and carefully placing his cards face down on the table.

“J'ai pas de chance dans le jeu aujourd'hui... Sam, comin'?”, he said, and Sam motioned for him to stay put for a second longer before counting her winnings and putting most of it away – however, she pushed three fifty dollar notes to a confused Dell.

“...Buy all of the guys something from me.  Doesn't matter what.  And buy Archie and Billy six shots of straight liquor.  Make sure they're drunk off their lily-white arses.”  Dell didn't comment, though he spoke volumes in the look he gave Gabriel, who quickly downed the last of his double shot of vanilla gin.  She'd not spoken to Archie, unsure how to communicate the fact that she didn't want him to come back to their room that night, and figured that if he was drunk enough, along with Billy, they might go with each other again to the RED side of the base.  “Okay, good night, everyone-”

“Sammy, you ain't going back to base alone, _someone_ 's got to keep you out of trouble.”, Gabriel offered somewhat transparently, but fortunately a lot more people focused on Chris' reply rather than the way Gabriel seemed eager to go with her.

“Like you could keep anyone _outtah_ trouble, Dante, ya bloody poikah.”

“Ta gueule, Chris, espèce d'idiot.”, her fellow pyro reacted, glaring at the sniper while pushing Sam determinedly towards the door.  “Nighty-night – remember, if anyone leaves here sober, you aren't doin' it right, ya shitheads.”  He walked out after Sam and, in a display of _breathtaking_ self-discipline, merely kept his arm loosely around her shoulders as he had done every other Saturday night as they walked out of the village.  But as soon as they were well out of sight, Sam felt him pull her closer as his arm dropped so it rested loosely across her back, with his hand on her hip.  “...Times like this, I wish I had a car.”

“Yeah, so you could have me in the backseat, right?”, Sam said: it was hardly a surprise that Gabriel grinned and nodded, although his explanation was less lewd.

“...Just so I could hurry us the hell back to base _faster_ – I swear to God, Sammy, it _hurts_ havin' to wait for us to be back there, but... Je veux que tout soit parfait, ce qui veut dire que je vais seulement te faire l'amour sur un lit décent. Ce sera pas comme mes aventures d'un soir habituelles, pas pour moi et j'espère aussi pas pour toi. C'est important pour moi, rien ne signifie plus pour moi que toi.”  Grinning and looking down at her with a look that made her knees buckle, he added: “Nothin' but the best for you, Sammy, mon ange.”

“Gabriel, keep talking like that and I'll start _running_ to base just to get there faster.”

“Doesn't sound like a bad idea... but ya probably are goin' to need to go easy now.”  The other pyro groaned in the quiet of the night, pulling her a little closer and leaning against her as he muttered: “ _I swear to God I'm not gonna hold anything back_.”  Sam couldn't help but shiver at that – the tone he spoke in, the true extent of his words, they all made something inside of her that had been lit by that first kiss scream for her to _get on with it and finally, finally give in_.  But like Gabriel, she held back, biting her lip and answering in kind, her voice soft and yet sultry.

“Now that's a promise you'd better keep...”  They were already at the gates by the time she had any attention for her surroundings again – before she knew it, she was already at the door to the BLU side of the compound, unlocking it with shaking hands, feeling nervous in the best possible way.  Once they were inside, Gabriel's patience seemed to finally start to crumble: barely had she closed the door behind them or Gabriel had her pushed against it, kissing her with so much longing that it almost felt desperate.  “ _Oh god, Gabriel...”_ , she whispered, and her fellow pyro grinned.

“It's still early, y'know, and all the others are still in town...”  His hand wandered to her hip again, pulling her leg up so it was wrapped around him before trailing lightly from her hip to her knee and then back, disappearing underneath her skirt and causing Sam to gasp softly.  He was right, of course: it was so early that not even doctor Steinheim had left the bar yet, meaning they had all the base to themselves – but Gabriel groaned and shook his head, seemingly remembering his words of before and the intention to do things properly.  “...Merde, I've gotta... keep my hands off ya _here_ , Sammy... your room-”

“Oh dear lord, yes, please.”, she said, pulling him along to her room, closing the door behind them before pulling Gabriel to her bed – before they were even two steps away from the door, they were kissing again, heatedly and deeply, not even breaking apart to breathe, kicking off their shoes as they went.  One of Gabriel's oversized shoes hit Archie's bat, sending it clattering onto the floor, and one of Sam's sneakers went sailing and landed on the scout's pillow, but she didn't even notice, distracted as she was from the world by the man that was now seemingly trying to map out her tongue with his own.  “Mmm...”, Sam moaned into the kiss as she felt her legs hit the bedside; Gabriel responded by very minutely shaking his head and tugging at her blouse, indicating he wanted it off.  “Mmnnnh...”, she mumbled – finally, her lover drew away a little, just enough to rest his forehead against hers as he pulled the blouse up further.

“...Sammy... Enlèves ce bête pièce de tissu maintenant ou je l'arrache...”  His tone had her hastily pulling up the blouse before mirroring his actions of before with his shirt, causing him to grin and slowly unbutton it before peeling it off himself as if they _weren't_ already close to boiling point.

“ _Christ_ , Gabriel, this isn't a striptease-”, Sam started, only to outright stare at the man when he finally, very gently, pushed her down onto the bed before sitting down on his knees in front of it, ending them up a little less-than-level but more than level enough for them to kiss properly.  It was as if the mere taste of him was like alcohol, Sam mused, her head spinning and her body feeling like it'd burst into flames any second.  All of her inhibitions seemed to disappear like smoke in the wind; all she wanted, all she needed, was to end up in his arms, high above the world.  “ _Gabriel_...”, she whispered as he pulled away again, his lips lightly pressing onto her cheek, and then further to the side, to her neck, and down to her shoulder where he pushed the strap of her frilly blue bra away and pressed kisses until her upper arm and then back to her collarbone, repeating the treatment on the other side before looking her in the eyes.  “...Ahh, Gabriel...”, Sam sighed – when he kissed her neck again, this time not as feather-light, she repeated the statement with more passion: “ _Ahh, Gabriel... damn..._ ”

“Samantha, mon ange... que t'es parfaite...”, he murmured right before he gave her a lovebite, his hands wrapping around her waist and pulling her against him.  It was almost a surprise when her bra fell off her as they detached again – or it would be if Gabriel didn't triumphantly hold it in his hand for a second longer than strictly necessary to toss it into a far corner of the room.  “I could live all my life just... just lookin' at you.  Or even just rememberin' you like this – naked and unafraid with me.”

“I'm not naked-”, Sam protested, only to be silenced by Gabriel pressing a finger against her lips, the other hand moving to her hip to steady himself a little.

“You don't gotta be naked.  I mean a different kind of naked.”, he admitted, and she smiled.  It _was_ indeed a very intimate moment, the way they now sat there, trying desperately to get as much of each other's bodies against their own as possible.  Sam could feel the raw need for physical satisfaction, but also something deeper, something that arose from Gabriel's eyes and flourished inside some dark, forgotten depth of her, and it made her feel a little apprehensive, or rather nervous.

“ _Gabriel,_ you want to kill me with anticipation?”, she ground out, trying her hardest to get the other pyro to kiss her again – however, instead, he moved back a little and kissed from her neck to her collarbone and then down to her breast, and she moaned when she could feel his lips touch the still-sensitive skin of the surgical scars.  “Oh... oh, yeah...”, she whispered, leaning back a little to allow Gabriel to sit a little closer, so she could wrap her legs around him: as soon as she did, however, he moaned against her skin and looked at her.

“I'm... losin' my fuckin' patience, Sammy...  All this foreplay... it's drivin' me out of my mind...”

“You want to skip to the main event?”, she said, and he winked at her, not answering straight away.

“...Think ya have to take off a little more if you want me goin' on... or let me...”, he said, eagerly running his hand along the waistband of her skirt to look for the zipper, but Sam shook her head and gently pushed away his hand before unzipping her skirt and pulling both it and her underwear down, so she was fully naked – and the moment she was, Gabriel reapplied his lips to her other breast, kissing along the scars and over her nipple before tracing it with his tongue, and Sam felt all control over her body slip away.  Shivering, she moaned the other pyro's name, trying to find anything to hold on to so she could at least feel some measure of control over the situation.

When Gabriel pushed her legs over his shoulders, she half-expected him to just do away with all pretense and just _take_ her; a part of her yearned for that, yearned for their finally melding together, yearned for the release it'd bring – because she had no doubt, with how turned on she was, that she'd instantly come when he did take her – but another part of her wanted more of his kisses, more of his touches, more of _him._ It was that part of her that, when he ran one of his calloused fingers over her privates, made her cry out softly.

_“Oh God...”_

“J'suis loin d'être divin, mon ange... mais pour toi, j'suis tout ce que tu veux... ton dieu, ton pécheur...”

“S-sois toi-m-même, Gabriel... oh god, I want you...”, she answered, causing her lover to first look surprised but then to look at her tenderly as he reapplied his lips to her chest, kissing down to her stomach now, and as he gently pushed his index finger just a little in between the folds of her labia, making her feel like he was trying to get her entire body to respond to the touch.  “...Oh dear God, I _need_ you...”, Sam admitted as she felt the heat of their passion burn just an inch away from devouring her.  “Oh, _Gabriel_... t-take me...”

“Daaamn, Sammy... j'te _jure_... I could come from just your _voice_ at this point...”, he admitted, withdrawing his fingers again to push off his own pants and underwear, looking her over as she lay back on the bed.  “...T'es une vision du ciel. Une ange. Mmmm, mon ange de feu. T'as envie de brûler avec moi, Sam?”, he said, and she licked her lips as she let her eyes wander over his naked form.  He had never looked more appealing than he did at that moment, naked in so many ways to her – not just undressed but uninhibited and honest.

“I want to fly with you, Gabriel... Oh, sais-tu pas?  Nous ne brûlerons pas, nous brillerons. Comme les étoiles du ciel.”, she sighed out, and the next thing she knew, Gabriel pulled her upright, kissing her slowly.  Again, Sam found the taste of her new lover exhilarating: like freshly harvested wheat, like dark chocolate, like the finest of delicacies – and all for her.  Slowly, she became aware that Gabriel had turned them so _he_ now stood closest to the bed, the reason for which became apparent the next moment, when he sat down and pulled her along so she was sitting on his lap.

“P-put your feet on the bed, mon ange, ce serait plus facile comme ça...”  As Sam complied, she could feel him grab hold of her hips and lift her just a little before settling her down again onto him – a groan escaped the both of them as Sam felt him enter her, and then another when he grabbed her hips and pushed up into her.  “ _Oh merde, je n'durera jamaiiiis..._ ”, he muttered – once Sam had caught her breath again, because that one half-thrust had made her very nearly shout in pure pleasure, she looked down at Gabriel and kissed him heatedly for a second before speaking.

“I wouldn't mind if you came five times before I did, Gabriel – we have all night- _oh Christ!_ ”  Her whisper turned to a whimper when Gabriel lifted her nearly off himself again before thrusting up into her just a little harder and faster than before, and his next thrust had her crying out his name.  _“Gabriel!_   Oh god... oh _god...!_ ”

“Merde, Sam, merde... j'peux pas... j'ai eu t-trop... de patience... m-maintenant... oh god, n-now I can't help myself... I have to... have to fuck you... have to have you... m-make you mi _-i-iiiiine_ – _ohh oui..._ ”  More out of curiosity than out of genuine skill, Sam had braced against Gabriel's thrusts a little, and the result had them both grasping for breath as fireworks went off behind their closed eyelids.

“I'm yours... oh _god_... _oh dear god, Gabriel- oh my Gabriel... y-yours, yoooouuuuurs... ahhh,_ d-deeper... _oh my god, I can't- I can't-”_   She tried to warn Gabriel but found all words and all air stolen from her lips by a particularly hard thrust of his that had her body suddenly be _ripped_ from her control and grip Gabriel hard – his next thrust saw him half-cry her name, muffling the rest of his expletives against her shoulder and giving her another lovebite in the process.

“...Oh merde...”, her lover gasped as he fell backwards just a little so he half-lay across her bed, looking at her with clear, unveiled adoration.  Sam had to admit that, now that the pure lust had fallen away, she felt a warmth flow from her heart: a warmth that was just as connected as the previous wash of pleasure had been to the tall, grinning, amazing man that still had one hand on her hip and lazily caressed her bottom.  “...Sammy, I can't believe just how perfect that was...”

“Dear god, neither can I.”, she admitted, getting off Gabriel's lap – or, at the very least, attempting to do so: Gabriel held her close and kissed her, lightly at first but then longer and longer until they only broke apart to breathe.  “...Gabriel...”, Sam whispered, to which he only replied after another dizzying kiss.

“I'm not letting you go, not tonight...”

“But maybe-”, she started, meaning to say that maybe she needed to freshen up just a little, but he shook his head.

“Je t'aime comme t'es, n'importe si nous sommes un peu sali...”  Sam whimpered when he reached a hand to her privates, very gently stroking her before pulling his fingers back and licking the moisture off them.  “Ah, t'as mon goût à moi, comment ne pas l'aimer?”

“Gabriel...”, she groaned, inhaling sharply when he let his fingers dip back down, this time allowing them to slip inside her before retreating them and once again licking them clean.  “Damn...”

“I think we both need more, right?”, he asked tentatively – when Sam nodded, he motioned for the bed.  “...Maybe you'd like setting the pace this time?  Prendre notre envol de nouveau?”

“Just say you want me on top and I will be.”, Sam admitted, and Gabriel chuckled lowly as he shook his head.

“Not yet... Sammy, d'you think you could... I mean, not that I wanna actually see it through all the way, but _j'avais des rêves_... your lips wrapped around me...”  Subconsciously, Sam licked her lips, which of course caught her new lover's attention and had him grin broadly, triumphantly – however, that grin flickered away in favor of an expression of pure bliss when Sam pushed him down onto the bed and straddled him.  “Ah, merde, j'en ai rêvé, et quand même ce n'était pas 'si bien... oh Sam... oh, mon ange...”  Slowly, she kissed down his neck – he got one or two lovebites as well, to match the ones he gave her in the heat of things before – and down his chest and his stomach until she could finally tease his erection with her tongue first before moving on to actually slowly allowing it to slip into her mouth.  “Ah, oui... q-que t'es... aaaardente... mon ange de _feu_...”, he ground out, obviously holding himself back from gripping her head and pushing deeper into the confines of her mouth.  She could only moan in reply, not willing to pull off him just yet.  “Tourne-toi un peu... afin que t'es assise à côté de moi...”, Gabriel muttered after a while, pulling at her shoulders: when she complied, moving off him, he gently prodded her so she'd sit within reach for his hands to again stroke her and calloused fingers to press inside of her.  It took no time at all for her to feel light-headed that way, pushing back against Gabriel's fingers while still pleasuring him; in the end, though, it was Gabriel that gently pushed her off him.  “Still wanna be the one in charge now?  Or d'you prefer me giving you a good _energetic_ show?”

“Shut up, Gabriel, and _enjoy_ the ride-”, she said, expecting his chuckle long before it sounded in the quiet of the room.  “...oh man...”, Sam groaned as she slowly lowered herself onto Gabriel.  “...I t-think-”

“Don't think... oh Sammy, _ouais... c-comme ça, ouiiii..._ ”  She would've grinned at her ability to make the other pyro's words get stuck in his throat if she weren't panting herself every time she moved down onto him – and then Gabriel gripped her hips and started to gently, almost unnoticeably, roll his hips into her motions, which had _her_ moan for a change.

“ _Chriiiist... Gabriel..._ you're t-too good... to be true...”

“Only for you...  _D-dieu me pardonne pour... oh, pour t'entraîner au péché-”_ , he started, and Sam shook her head, shifting just a little so she could move just a little more easily, causing a soft swearword to slip past her guard before she answered.

“T-this isn't sin... this is... oh, Gabriel, this is _heaven_... ahh...  I-”  Her lover seemed to understand instinctively what she meant and he reached his hands a little further up, allowing her to lean back just a little more so she could look him over as she was balancing right on the edge of oblivion.  The gentle motions of his hips were minute now, as if he wanted her to hover suspended between losing herself and the passion dying out again, and he looked up at her heatedly, through half-lidded eyes that were dark with much more than just need.  And then, slowly, she let her eyes travel to his shoulders, his arms, his chest, seeing just how caught up in each other they'd become – the slightest layer of sweat made his skin look like it'd been varnished, and the tension of keeping them both right at the edge translated to his muscles as well, as she could see the slightest shivers run through him... she very slowly moved her hips now, expecting his gasp long before it sounded in the dead quiet surrounding them; but what was more important to her, by far, was the way his hands shifted on the small of her back to hold her as he rolled his hips just that bit more deliberately.  “O-oh, no, no... n-not yet, I'll-”

“We can't stay like this forever... I have to see you come _now_ , Sammy, sinon j'deviendrai fou-”  She picked up the pace again, and his words devolved into a long, loud moan, though his eyes didn't move off hers.  It felt like doors were being kicked in in her mind, like walls were being _demolished_ by every roll of his hips – almost _too_ intimate and too _open_ if it weren't for the fact that she could see the same happening to him from the startled, exhilarated, utterly heartstopping look he gave her.  _“J'peux pas... j'peux paaaas... ahh, Saaaaaam...!_ ”, he gasped out, the grip he had on her hips now tight enough to leave bruises.  And yet, despite his warning, she was still the first to go over the edge: something inside her gave way and she felt her legs move of their own accord, riding out the waves of near-electrical pleasure that ran from her loins and seemingly transmitting them to Gabriel, since her lover managed to hang on by no more than a second before finally having to succumb to his own climax, their eyes never leaving the other's.

“ _...God..._ what do you even do to me, Gabriel?”, Sam gasped out – her knees felt like they'd locked into place, though when Gabriel gently coaxed her to lay down beside him, they cooperated well enough – leaving her fellow pyro to smile and shrug.

“I'd like to think I'm only bringin' out what's already in there, Sammy... but _you_... oh, ce que tu m'fait devenir, mon ange...”  He pulled her close and kissed her, his arms resting around her, immobile – it was then, before he even spoke, that Sam realized he wasn't trying to get her ready for another round, like he had before.  “...D'you mind if we just... lay here a little?  Not that I can't go again if you want to, but just... Disons simplement s'étreindre, seulement pour quelques minutes. Nous pouvons faire plus que seulement baiser, non?”  Looking at Gabriel, Sam noticed just how _fragile_ he looked once again – not just naked next to her, but _bare_ , stripped of every pretense.  He'd wanted her heart, he said, but was satisfied with just her body.

Gladly, she followed her first instinct and nodded, knowing full well that they'd fall asleep like that.  But as Gabriel let himself be lulled to sleep by her proximity, she couldn't.  Because after her initial compliance, another feeling had struck her.  _Fear_.

Suddenly, she felt the true extent of how much she'd bared herself to him, and she felt anxiety hit her.  She'd given herself to Gabriel – she'd let down her guard so completely that she'd let him into her heart, and the sudden realization, the sudden fear of the power that gave him, made her shiver.  He mistook it for discomfort in the cold night's air and pulled her bedsheets over the both of them, but Sam felt her heart freeze all the same.  In the morning, she'd have to either break Gabriel's brittle heart... or risk having her own still-ailing heart broken instead...


	13. And I'm feeling small

“Mnnn...”  It took a while for Gabriel to figure out where he was, which was surprising enough considering he'd dreamt of Sam's room so often he thought he could find it by heart.  Next to him, Sam feebly stirred, turning in his hold.  He felt his heart swell up with that indeterminate feeling that had caused him, only a week before, to speak out against Billy and confess that he wanted to be with Sam instead of him – he didn't dare call it 'love', not just yet, not with all of this still new and brittle.  But he knew that was what it was, what it _had_ to be.  He hadn't lost his heart often – only three times in his life, if he was honest.  Once to Jacques, his first steady partner – they'd been together for a year and a half before it'd ended because he'd gone back to his ex and left Gabriel, only a month before he'd gotten his promotion – and then to Will, whom he'd been with for a little over two years.  Until, of course, the previous Sunday, when he'd admitted he wanted to pursue a deeper relationship with Sam, who now sighed as she slowly woke up.

“...Oh, Gabriel...”, she whispered, turning onto her back, causing him to grin and pull her closer – or himself closer to her, he wasn't bothered by meaningless details, he mused.

“Good morning, ma chère... hope I didn't wake you, but you were just too beautiful not to look at...”, he admitted, allowing one of his hands to gently brush over her shoulder and the back of her neck.  Touching her soft skin, feeling the light crisscrossing scars of the skin grafts, made him feel like his hands weren't as messed up as they were – as if his skin there was still whole, unblemished by his mistakes, his sins-

“N-no, you didn't wake me up, Gabriel...”, she admitted, turning just a little so she could look at him.  Instantly, he knew that whatever was on her mind wasn't good.  For one, she had a smile, but it was a sorrowful one rather than a genuinely happy one; and the other clue was that she didn't kiss him back when he pressed his lips on her cheek.

“Samantha, qu'est-ce qui se passe?”, he asked, and she sighed.

“...That obvious that I had something on my mind, huh?  ...Oh, Gabriel, last night was... it was perfect, and I am so...”  She couldn't find the right words, apparently, simply taking one of his hands and squeezing it, which he mirrored without a second thought – while they were still holding the other's hand, she continued, her eyes fastened on the wall without seeing, he knew.  “...But I... can't.  I can't.  You love me – I didn't properly appreciate until yesterday how deeply you do love me – but I... I can't reciprocate, Gabriel.  I'm _terrified_ of this.  I lay awake for the longest time yesterday evening, thinking... thinking that even if you don't want to hurt me, even if you try your hardest not to hurt me... if you _do_ hurt me, I'll...”

“T'as peur que t'vas suivre l'exemple de ton frère, Sam?”, he asked, and she shook her head.

“N-no, of course not, but... Gabriel, it _devastated_ me, what happened to him and what happened to my own life.  And it's not just what happened to him – it's... my parents, my job, my entire _life_...  Oh, damn it, Gabriel, I know it can't end well with us.  I can't give you what you need, and if you try giving me what _I_ need, you'll only become _worse_.”

“M-mais non, Sam!”, Gabriel said, pulling her closer to place a kiss on the top of her head.  The thrill of feeling her body pressed against his was lost in the wave of pain from his heart.  “I wouldn't... I _wouldn't_!  I expect nothing from you, Sammy, mon ange, j'te jure!  Bien la dernière chose que je veux, c'est que tu souffres à cause de moi!  ...Merde, je t'en prie... don't ...”  Gabriel already knew what would follow, because it was his worst fears realized.  Sam would tell him that she didn't want him anymore, that they could never be, and he'd be lost to his misery again – alone and unguarded, with only his vices to keep him company.  “Let's just forget about it all, je t'en prie... go back to the way we were before-”

“But Gabriel, how can we go back to that when I genuinely... oh God, don't you see?  I would love for us to go back to being friends, but after this...”, she said, motioning for the room, which was admittedly messy and had items of their clothing strewn around as if they'd been undressed by a whirlwind and thus prompted him to blush modestly.  “...After this, I can't go back to just being friends.  And it's not fair, Gabriel, you deserve someone that can give you everything you want and need... you don't deserve to live like this, just going from lay to lay with nothing but _hope_ of something fixed...”

“But you want me.”, Gabriel said, causing Sam to blush and nod, looking away and letting go of his hand.

“Do you even have to ask, Gabriel?  Yes, I do want you, and you may _say_ that it's enough but I know it's never going to be enough for you.  If lust was all you needed from me, you wouldn't have fallen asleep in my arms – if it was the case, you wouldn't even have needed me in the first place.”  She sighed, turning away from him and getting out of the bed, putting on her underwear hastily – he followed the example before stepping in front of her, putting his hands on her shoulders.  She didn't push them away, but she also still didn't meet his eyes as she continued:  “...The bottom line is, someone will get hurt.  And as much as it wounds me to be the one to hurt _you_ , I can't... watch myself fall apart, no matter how much you mean to me.”  Gently but decisively, she took his hands and pulled them off her shoulders, holding onto them for a second longer once she'd lowered them to his sides before letting go with a sad sigh; he groaned and raised another hand before dropping it again helplessly.  He wanted to hold her, squeeze her against him, tell her not to listen to her fears, but he would be lying if he said that he wasn't afraid as well, of everything she feared and so much more.  'How can I change her mind if part of me agrees with her?', he found himself thinking, which prompted another groan, this time more annoyed.

“Donc... donc on dit quoi?  'Merci pour la nuit merveilleuse, qu'il vais devoir te durer pour toujours, car il ne va pas se produire plus'?  Sam, I know you don't really think that.”

“I don't, of course, but what else can we say?  'Yes, let's start a relationship that'll break the both of us'?  'Let's start something that'll end with you going the way Lander did because I was too tormented to see what I did to you'?”

“Pour toi, je ferai tout ce qu'il faut pour te garder une partie de ma vie.  You _know_ I will!”, Gabriel said vehemently – _that_ was something he _was_ able to say with full confidence.  To keep Sam in his life, in whatever way possible, he would defy the laws of nature themselves if need be.  However, Sam shook her head and shivered – when she looked at him, it was clear that she was on the verge of crying, and that pulled at his heart so much that he surreptitiously ran a finger over his cheek.

“Je le sais – I _do_ know, Gabriel, and that... that's the reason why it can't work.  I can't expect you to work for a relationship if I can't match your effort, so us being involved wouldn't work out; and us being friends is hard, too, if you take into account that we're at least deeply in lust with each other – and lust screws up friendships.  Before you protest the fact, Gabriel, tell me, do you ever even _talk_ to Graeme?  Do you know anything about him?”, she said, and the RED pyro groaned  She made an excellent case, because of course he hadn't ever talked properly to Graeme before they'd had their trysts, and afterwards it felt too awkward to strike up conversation with the man.

“...Merde... donc, qu'est-ce qu'on fait maintenant?  Do I just... leave?  Hang on to tonight?”

“...I don't know, but please... Gabriel, I-”, she started – somewhere far off, he knew that she just needed space to _cry_ about the difficult situation they'd ended up in, but suddenly he felt rage, all-consuming blind rage, sweep in and blanket his mind.

“Donc, quoi?!”, he said loudly, “You want me to go, to sneak away, pretend this never happened?  Deny that I fuckin' love you?  I can't deny it, Sam, and neither can you!  Je t'aime, merde, _je t'aime_ , et je continuera a t'aimer jusqu'a mon dernier souffle!  How can I go back to how things were the way before when I got a huge fuckin' _hole_ the shape of _you_ right in the center of my fuckin' _heart_?!”

“I don't know, Gabriel, I don't know, I don't know how we pick u-up from this, I don't know how t-to let you g-go either but we h-ha-have to, _w-we have to_!!”, she said loudly, tears spilling from her eyes and running over her cheeks – a part of him wanted to reach out and hold her, but the rage had him grab his clothes, throw them on with angry, sharp movements, and then turn on his heels and walk away, leaving the door open and hearing her sobs until the door outside fell shut behind him.  Only then did it hit him how bad the entire situation was – for him, for her, for the entire world.  She had said she didn't know how to let him go either – which meant that she didn't want them to stop being friends – but that they had to.  And he knew that it was true: how could their friendship ever be the same if they would constantly remember that night?  How could he still be friends with her if he'd always remember how she denied him; and how could she still be his friend when she'd never forget how she'd had to hurt him, no matter if it was for her own sake?

“Oh merde... Oh _merde_... oh putain...”

He sagged to the ground somewhere – he'd kept walking away from the building not looking at his surroundings, not caring where he ended up – and finally followed Sam's example, trying to ease the heartwrenching, utterly cruel pain of the impossibility of their relationship by crying freely and loudly.

“'Ey, Sam, how'd- _whoa, what the..._ ”  Sam looked up from her pillow to see Archie stand in the doorway, looking from her to the rest of the room and then back to her.  Drawing a shaky breath, the pyro shook her head and crawled back under the covers.

“I don't... I just want to forget it all.  I just...”  Another wave of tears, burning in her eyes like acid and feeling like liquid ice on her skin, followed and she buried her head back into the pillow once more, fully expecting Archie to flee the scene because she was crying – but much to her surprise, her bed creaked and she could feel a comforting hand settle on her shoulder.

“...Take it things with Dante went a li'l rocky.”  His voice sounded somewhat flat, disappointed; she couldn't blame him for that, she mused, not when he knew just how much she'd been through and how much Gabriel had been through.

“D-don't get me wrong, it... he... we...”, she muttered, turning around as she tried to figure out a way to convey just how much the previous night had meant to her without embarrassing the scout or herself on the way, but Archie gave her a soft smile and nodded.

“I know, Sam, ya ain't gotta say it was everything ya wanted or needed or whatevah – Siegfried ain't stopped blushin' all through breakfast when Dell said ya were late for ya Sunday mornin' pancakes.”  For a few seconds, Sam's grief was pushed aside by a wave of shame as she realized the medic had come back to base early enough to still hear her and Gabriel.

“...I'll, uh, apologise to him when I'm not feeling like utter shite...”, she spoke softly, after which Archie nodded and looked at her, prompting her to speak on, which she did in a half-whisper: “...After that, I just... freaked out, I guess.  I felt vulnerable and raw – and I don't mean because of... you know...  I felt like Gabriel had gotten in too deep and I couldn't... I couldn't take the thought that he'd end up _destroying_ me without even realizing it.  So when he slept-”

“Jeez, Dante actually _slept_ with ya?  Like in, eyes closed, loud snorin', ya couldn't even budge him?”, Archie said, and Sam bit her lip as she nodded.  “...Sam, he... ya know he ain't nevah done that to anyone else, right?  Even with Billy – if they fell asleep togetha, it was in _his_ bed an' not Billy's.  He ain't evah sleep in anyone else's bed.  ...Think I know what happened.  This mornin', ya told Gabriel ya can't go on with it an' he flipped out, right?”

“M-more or less.  I told him it'd be awkward, a-and...”  Sam found she had to inhale and exhale a few times to calm her panic as the full extent of what she'd said to her fellow pyro hit.  She hadn't just said it'd be awkward, she had said it would be impossible.  She had basically destroyed their friendship.  All of the times when she'd been so delighted to see Gabriel would now cease, and all of the times when she'd genuinely enjoyed her evening because she'd been by his side... would he even _look_ at her now, now that she'd broken his heart?  “...Oh god, Archie, but _I had to_... I couldn't...  I just couldn't...!”  Her breaths rose again, beyond even the panicked level, and suddenly Archie jumped back away from her, running off.  “S-shit... shit...”  She could feel her body grow heavy and sharp stabs of pain in her neck and head, and the next thing she knew, Archie stood back in the room behind doctor Steinheim, who held a foul-smelling bottle to her nose that he pulled away the moment he saw her opening her eyes again.

“...Meine Freundin, you haff fainted... you had zhe anxiety attack... now, Archie haz told me a little of vot haz happened – ruhe, Zamantha, ich brauche nicht es zu wissen, but maybe you need to tell zhis to someone, ja?”

“Y-you can know.  I don't... I need to...”  She could feel her breathing once again elevate, and the doctor handed her a small tablet.

“Here, take zhis.  Zhis will calm zhe nerves, so you can speak inztead of faint.  It vould not do if you would haff anozher panic attack.”  After inspecting the tablet apprehensively, Sam put it on her tongue, where it instantly melted away – just like the anti-anxiety meds they'd given her back at the hospital, she realized, relaxing just a little again.  Then, after only a few seconds, a feeling like a wave of cool water rushing through her took her over, and muscles she didn't even _know_ had been tensed went back to their natural, relaxed state.

“...Mmh...”, she groaned – now that the pain of her body was gone, all that remained was the pain of her soul, and that was unfortunately growing larger the more she thought of the situation.  “...I'm sorry for yesterday, Siegfried...”, she said, her voice sounding just a little more lofty than it normally would, and the medic nodded.

“You don't haff to apologize, meine Freundin, it iz not like any of us didn't know zhat you and herr Dantan would zleep togezher.  But vhy... I know you are both... sie sind enge Freunde.  Zhen vot haz happened?”

“...Doctor, you'd know, better than anyone.  I've just been through a _major_ life-altering trauma.  Not just the loss of my brother, but everything that preceded it, like the loss of my job and my two months of searching for something else and meanwhile trying to be there for Michael... and my parents suing and disowning me... the burns, the fact that I've had to live as a man for three weeks, lying to all of you... a-and so many other, petty, insignificant things that just added to the mess things were and _are_.  Gabriel, he's... you know how he is.  A pyromaniac, an alcoholic, probably a nymphomaniac as well-”

“Nein, nymphomania means zhat zhe sufferer cannot control zhe impulses – Gabriel _choozes_ to zleep around.”, the doctor stated, and Sam nodded.

“-well, a sex-addict then.  Those are all defenses for his own trauma, his own wounds.  He's lost a lot in his life, and he blames himself.  ...Well, Gabriel needs someone in his life, someone that can put him back on the right path and _keep_ him there.  He needs someone that'll be a pillar of strength just in case he can't be strong enough.  ...And last night, when he slept, I just... _panicked_ when I realized I can't be that for him.  I cannot be that person.  I can't be strong, I can't pull him upright, because _I_ am just as fractured as _he_ is – and he can't do the same for me for the same reason.”

“Zamantha...”, Siegfried said, but Sam shook her head.  She knew the medic would argue, would say that love – whichever love she held for the pyro – would be enough, but he didn't fully understand.

“...L-last night... I... we looked in each other's eyes and all of my soul just _opened_ to him, Siegfried.  All of my defenses went down in the blink of an eye.  Like I told Archie, I... felt _raw_.  Like a newborn.  Nothing but bare skin and vulnerable heart.  A-and I know that Gabriel got in too deep, and that I could never oust him again... and now... now I just feel like he'll _ruin_ me, knowingly or not.  He has the keys, he could _take everything_ and leave me empty, broken...”

“But vhy vould he?”, Siegfried asked, sounding nonplussed, and Sam shook her head again.

“I can't... I can't.  I just can't let that happen.  I-it's better if I hurt him now, just a little, than the pain he's going to feel if I turn out not to...”  The thought of depression, of self-destruction in either the way Gabriel pursued or the way Michael had preferred, made Sam shiver despite herself, feeling sick to her stomach all of a sudden.  “I refuse to go down his path.  I don't want to end up like my brother, too depressed to see the point anymore, and I don't want to end up a second Gabriel either, needing cheap, easy thrills to add substance to my life.  ...Oh, Siegfried, mein Freund, why couldn't I _realize_ that it'd end like this _before_ I took Gabriel with me yesterday?  Why was I so damn _blind_?”

“Du war nicht blind, meine Freundin, du war hoffnungsvoll. Das ist ein riesiger Unterschied.”, the medic said softly, patting her on the shoulder.  “...Perhaps it vould be best if ve let you rezt for zhe day.  If you are hungry, Archie vill bring you somezhing, oder nicht?”, the medic said, turning to the scout, who nodded fiercely.

“Ya bet I will!  ...Aw, Sammy, ya just... aw hell, I ain't know what ta say... ya got a real bad situation goin' for ya, huh?”, he said in the end, after having tried to find a more accurate way to voice the situation, and Sam nodded, managing a rueful half-smile.

“Like I said before, the entire damn universe needs to get some sense smacked into it.  I never _asked_ for this, I never wanted to hurt Gabriel – I _never wanted to hurt anyone_ , least of all _Gabriel_ because all he did was fall for me at the most inopportune bloody time of my bloody life...”  Sighing, she turned back to the medic.  “Thank you, Siegfried.  I promise top notch performance on the battlefield tomorrow.”

“Ach, das weiss ich doch, Zamantha...”, he said with a fatherly smile, patting her on the shoulder again before heading out of the room, closing the door again.  Sam half expected the scout to leave her as well, but he sat back by her side and looked at her with a sad expression.

“...Hey, uh, ya want me to run over to RED side an'... I dunno, get Grant?  He maybe can have a li'l talk to Dante-”

“N-no.  This is between me and Gabriel.  The less people try to... alter what happened... the better it'll go for me and him to just... put this past us...”, she said, not needing Archie's look of disbelief to have the painfully heart-wrenching certainty that a lot of things would happen, but 'putting this past us' would not – would _never –_ be one of them.

“...Gabriel, son, ah ain't seen yeh perform 's well on tha' there battlefield as yeh did t'day for _years_.”, Grant admitted that Monday evening, smiling at the pyro – Gabriel looked up at the engineer and smiled for a second, using his cooking as an excuse to move back away.

“Merci bien, Grant, mon ami.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I need to go check on my food again.”  However, when he got into the kitchen, he sighed and ran a hand through his hair shakily.  He'd pretended to be okay, pretended that nothing had happened out of the ordinary with Sam, but that, of course, wasn't true.  The truth of the matter was that he and Sam were worse off than being strangers: they were in the awkward area between friends, lovers, and enemies.  The truth of the matter was that he'd only thrown himself into his job that morning to forget the grief that had consumed basically his entire Sunday.  The truth of the matter was that every time he'd caught himself thinking about Sam – her face, her tears, her voice, her words, her body, her kisses, even the scent of her hair – he'd started thinking about battle strategies instead.  The truth of the matter was that he had lost a lot of sleep but came up with a lot of excellent new tricks to use to make up for his fatigue.  The truth was that he, fatigued or not, distracted or not, had indeed performed just as well on the battlefield as he had in the early days of his assignment.

The truth, the painful truth, was that he was starting to think that _Samantha had been right_ when she said it'd be better for the two of them not to be together, that it'd only make matters worse if they were involved.

“...Ah, merde...”, he groaned, looking at his cooking.  It smelled good, and it'd probably taste good too he mused, but he had no appetite.  He had barely touched his breakfast as well, claiming he had an upset stomach, but now he knew he needed to _eat_ or he'd pass out the next day.  “ _Merde_.”, he ground out again, flipping the chicken fillets and stirring the mixed vegetables to go with them again.  'Why does my life have to be so... so goddamn _complicated_?  Why can't I just forget about Sam?  Or even go talk to her and tell her 'please let's just be friends'?  Anything's better than this... this... cette situation merdique foutu...'  He switched off the stove with a sigh and carried the pans inside.  “Come an' get it.”, he said loudly, causing the men that were sitting around in the living room to file in, taking up their spots at the table while he took the large pot with vegetables off the stove and carried it to the dining room table.

“Well, fireball, never thought I'd say it, but this food is excellent!”, John said loudly after his first bite, and the others eagerly agreed.  Gabriel once again took their compliments with a smile and was ready to eat when he caught Graeme saying to Grant that 'tha' wee lass'a his made 'im a right decent man 'gain'.  He felt his heart squeeze, the grief he'd tried in vain to push back rise again – he hid it by shoveling a large portion of vegetables into his mouth and bowing his head as he chewed slowly.  Was every mention of Sam forever going to feel like being backstabbed right in the heart?  If so, he'd prefer having Arsène do it just once outside of battle – the quick and easy way out, he caught himself thinking and shuddered.  Had Sam really gotten so deep into his heart that she'd never leave?

And, which was infinitely worse, _how hopeless were things_?  When she'd see him the next weekend, what would happen?  Would she run away?  Would she hit him?  Would she speak to him as if everything was back to the way it was before?  Would she ignore him?

“...Gabriel?  Ya gonna finish that?”, Billy asked next to him, his voice a little gruff, and another stab of pain entered his heart.  He'd wronged the scout, spurned his love – the one love he'd been certain of in his life – for nothing but heartbreak.  Thinking he had a chance, a genuine chance, with Sam... but now he found himself longing for the sense of security Billy had given him, which was now _also_ out of his reach, because the scout would never allow them to pick up their relation again, not the way it had ended, not the way it had been.  “Yo, Dante-”, Billy started again, and Gabriel pushed his plate towards the scout.

“No, take it – I need some air.”  He walked out automatically, barely noticing he'd climbed out of the window again.  But he did notice when he ended up on the outcropping of rock he knew so well.  '...Oh, non...', he thought.  There, underneath his feet, was a layer of blackened rock, hidden underneath the fine dust that their battles had knocked loose from the surrounding rock.  It was like a scar: nothing, no matter how hard the teams had tried, had been able to rid their base of the reminder of the cost of pyromania to them and the world.  This was the site where Lander had cried for help while he burned to death.  This was the place where his soul had departed this sorry earth.  Gabriel sank to his knees, overcome by memories.

He still remembered the day.  He and Lander had been in a relationship – well, if 'relationship' was the right term for something that was neither exclusive nor regular.  They'd just somehow sensed the other's need for release or relief and had met up in the nights.  Sometimes they'd slept under the stars afterwards, occasionally because they'd simply been too drunk or too high off each other to be able to return to their rooms.  However, it hadn't always been sex – sometimes, he and Lander just sat opposite each other, talking about life, about chemistry and fireworks, about Lander's ambition to get cured as soon as his nine-year contract was up so he could join the firefighters, about Gabriel's mistakes and the way he'd lost contact with his family...  But that night, they'd slept together after dinner, and then Gabriel had returned to his room again.  He'd seen and felt the way Lander's hands shook, of course, as if he was experiencing withdrawal, but had thought nothing of it since it wasn't the first time.  They'd said goodnight, Lander had admitted that he was going to drink himself silly that night because 'it itches again, Gabriel, it itches like a bad mosquito bite' – he had offered to stay and drink with him but Lander had waved him off with a smile on that boyish face and a promise to share a bottle with him another day... and the next thing Gabriel remembered, was the uproar the base was in, and the orange glow over the nightly battlefield, and Grant pulling him aside and saying 'he's still in there, son' – superfluously, of course, because _everybody_ could hear the screams coming from that shed, but the fire was too strong, the flames too high and too hot, and...

“...Lander, mon ami... I wish ya were still here now – you'd know how I should handle this entire business with Sammy.  You were _good_ with women.  And with men.  And hell, with anything else, too.  Liquor, cards, that trippy stuff ya never did let me try...  Anyway, man, if ya were here... you could talk some sense into Sam, tell her we can still be friends even if we fucked.  Like we were.”  However, when he said it out loud, he realized something, and that fact would've made him stagger if he hadn't already been sitting on his knees.

Lander and him had had a relationship, just like he and Sam could have.  But if he looked at which parts they'd both play in the relationship, he found that back then, he'd been the young, unstable pyro with the mental issues and the insecurities and Lander had been the older cynic that had more vices than virtues; now, _Sam_ was just like he'd been, and he... had become like to _Lander_.  Pyromania and all – because when he looked next to him, he saw that he'd brought his small pink purse that contained, apart from memories of his past, the tools of his sin.  A groan escaped him as he continued his one-sided conversation with the ghost of his old friend.

“...Ah, Lander, is everything bound to repeat itself, huh?  Do I gotta light myself up too?  Is Sam gonna be left grievin' over me?  ...Is that why she said no to me, because she's afraid I'm gonna light myself up and she'll be left alone and heartbroken?  ...Jesus...”  He grew quiet again, shaking his head with a soft self-deriding chuckle: “...Regarde, j'suis en train de parler à moi-même... j'deviens fou, j'le jure...  Bien, Dantan, t'sais tu dois juste continuer.  Sans elle.  N'importe que ça t'fait mal – t'as pas de choix.  Just... fuckin' grit your teeth, dry your goddamn eyes, and _go the fuck on_.  What's she know?”  He picked up the small purse and rolled his eyes, trying his hardest to forget that he had a lighter and matches in there.  “What's she know, huh?”, he repeated, getting up off the ground and turning back to the base.

A second later, however, he slowly zipped open the bag, his fingers closing around the lighter.  The cool metal felt like it burnt into the palm of his hand, and he almost expected to smell burning flesh – only the pain and the sickly scent didn't come, and after a few seconds he relaxed again.  He felt high-strung, and he _knew_ that lighting a fire, no matter how small, would have the instant effect of making his worries and doubts melt away... but if he started now, could he still stop?  What was more, if he did this, he felt like he would prove Sam right – he felt like it would prove that he was bad to be around, a hazard to himself, his team, and everyone that loved him.  He tried to relax his fingers again and drop the lighter, but his digits refused to cooperate, and in the end he sighed and relented.

As the flames blossomed up from the few scraps of wood – some debris from planks that had been blown onto the rocks by a rocket blast, he presumed – he instantly felt a relaxation that neither alcohol nor physical release brought him.  His anxieties, his tension, all seemed to flow away from him and into the fire, the flames of which danced like bellydancers, enticing him, luring him closer to them – but he knew they would not reward proximity but punish it, so he stayed away.

“...Merde, Sam, look what ya made me turn to now...”, he said softly, shaking his head in disgust.

“...Sam, c'mon, I'm hungry...”, Archie whined from beyond the doorway, instantly joined by doctor Steinheim's voice.

“Zamantha, ist alles in ordnung?”

“Yeah, of course...”, she answered, trying to sound more cheery than she felt – which she managed reasonably well, considering that she felt sick to her stomach.  It was Saturday, and she _should_ have felt relaxed, but instead she was anxious beyond even her jittery nerves of the previous week.  That had been because she felt anticipation for her night with Gabriel – but now, now that she had, and she'd become afraid... Saturday was the day she looked forward the least in the entire week.  Meeting him on Tuesday had been awkward, but after that it'd been business as usual – kill him, be killed by him, avenge herself, let him avenge himself.  But now, outside of battle... what did they still have?  Would he be angry at her still?  Or would he beg, would he try and plead his way back into her arms?  Sighing softly, she looked herself over.  Her outfit was a far cry from the absolutely gorgeous skirt and blouse she'd worn the previous week, simply because she'd felt confident and thrilled then and now she felt gloomy: a black short-sleeved shirt of her favourite brand with the words RAVE CRASH BURN REVIVE on the front in deep blue letters, black loose jeans and light blue sneakers of the same brand as her shirt.  Exiting, she looked shyly at Archie.  “...This okay?”

“Better 'n okay, Sammy – ya look beautiful.  Now c'mon, let's go eat!”, Archie said loudly, though his eyes betrayed that he understood why she felt a little reluctant to go to town.  Siegfried, who had still been standing next to the scout, smiled at her encouragingly, pulling her along to the car with which he always drove to the town, where Yaroslav stood waiting.

“Oh, no, Yaro... I'm so sorry-”

“Little pyro not be sorry... Yaro understand.  Old soul... no explain needed.  Little pyro been feeling bad all week, I know why.  Siegfried, good friend, told me... trouble with Danti.”  It was surprising to Sam that the heavy weapons expert knew how to voice all of her trouble in a few heavily accented words: she nodded, merely patting his beefy upper arm, and he patted her hand.  “Yaro treat little pyro to drink with dinner!  Maybe then, trouble little more far away.”

“...Thanks.”, she admitted, adding a second later: “...God, I don't even want to... I don't think I can even look at him and see the hurt...”

“But you must bear it, Zamantha – zhat you cannot avoid.  Herr Dantan vill only become more hurt zhe longer you avoid him.”, Siegfried said as he pulled out of the parking lot, causing Sam to sigh.

“...Yeah, I suppose you're right.  Still, I'm not looking forward to it.  Not knowing how he'll react is... it's torture.”

“'Ey, ya ain't goin' in alone, Sammy, ya got me with ya.”, Archie admitted, and that, finally, caused Sam to smile with more conviction.  At least she still had the scout and the medic by her side – and Yaroslav, she added a second later when the man nearly shouted his agreement with Archie's sentence.

“Ve too, little Sam!  Yaro and Siegfried and Archie... we keep you company, da?”

“Zhat could haff been zaid less loudly, mein Freund...”, Siegfried said, to which Yaroslav muttered an elaborate apology in Russian that only halted when they pulled into the parking lot of the bar.  Seeing all of the RED team already present in the bar and a few of their own team, such as Dell, already among them, Sam took a deep breath: noticing her do that, Siegfried turned in the driver's seat, looking at her in slight worry.  “...Bist du fertig, ihn zu sehen?”

“Ja... yeah, I am.  Or no, I'm not, but I have to, so...”, she amended as she opened the back door of the car, waiting for Yaroslav and Siegfried to walk to the bar in order to follow them, with Archie walking beside her.

As soon as she entered the bar, a slight silence fell: in the moment that felt like a collective intake of breath, Sam looked at the bar to find Gabriel absent, and then it seemed like the bar unfroze and everyone started talking again.  She took her usual seat next to Archie at the table and ordered the weekend special, sighing.

“...Hey, ya want me ta go an' ask Grant-”, Archie started, but the RED engineer walked over to Sam already, nodding at her friendly before speaking up softly but bluntly.

“It ain't gone so well las' weekend, right?”

“...That's an understatement.  How bad was he?”, she asked, and Grant sighed.

“Smelled like smoke a couple'a nights.  Drunk las' Sunday.  Kept 'is hands off'a Graeme, though, an' he ain't tried ta make amends with Billy yet 's far as ah know.  The rest'f the team think he's doin' A-OK, though – his cookin' an' his battle performance went through th'roof...  Sam, ah gotta ask, did yeh-”

“Y-yes, but... but I panicked and... and I told him we couldn't be involved, said I didn't even know if we could still be friends because it'd be weird...  Oh, Grant, I wish I had just said I could never give him my heart.”

“Well, y'hurt him, that much's fer sure, but maybe... maybe he ain't angry at yeh.  Ah mean, he loves yeh-”  However, just when he meant to continue, Gabriel exited from the toilet and saw her, and for a split second he seemed to want to walk over but then he scowled and walked to the bar tensely, and Sam sighed, feeling tears well up in her eyes.

“...I think he doesn't love me anymore now.”

“Ach, Zamantha...”, Siegfried said, patting her on the shoulder.  Archie did the same, looking torn between walking over to Gabriel and having a shouting match with him and pulling Sam along back to base.  In the end, he sighed and slumped in his seat, motioning for the waitress to come back and ordering the both of them 'a bottle'a Ginger Delight' together with two glasses – the drink, it turned out, was a pre-made cocktail with whisky and ginger ale and just a hint of lemon juice, and it burned Sam's stomach, promoting her to eat just a bite or two more of the fried fish that turned out to be the weekend special.  It also made her feel just a little less depressed, so after dinner she found herself telling Archie, Grant, Yaroslav, Jane, Dell and Arsène about her favourite fish'n'chip shop back home.  Every time she thought of Michael during her story, or every time she met Gabriel's gaze and found his looks too much to bear, she took another sip, until, in the end, when she started her card game with the men, she was already tipsy.  However, as she found an easy escape from her worries and a fun pastime in playing poker, the men were not rewarded by her drinking – she won every hand save three, which went to Dell, Arsène and Yaroslav – and the latter only won because he had two aces in his hand.  But then, as Siegfried left the game, Jane grinned.

“Dante, you've been sulking over there for far too long, get yer ass over here, firebug!”

“Shut it, rockets-for-brains!”, he reacted, looking offended but walking over to the table to occupy the seat that Siegfried had vacated, which just happened to be the seat next to her – Sam felt her heart stop and dropped the cards in her hands, causing everyone to look at her.

“I... I just remembered, I'm expecting a call from my brother, h-he promised to call when he was back from his business trip and I left my mobile at the base – b-but Radovan might want to fill in for me?”, she offered hopefully, already backing away from the table, ignoring the fact that she sounded almost desperate to the men and the way they looked at her as a result of that fact.  Then, not waiting for a reply, she nearly ran out of the bar after Siegfried, with Archie following her, waving goodbye to the rest of the men hastily while Sam ran up to the medic's car as he started it.  “...Siegfried, c-can I-”

“Zamantha?”, he said, looking startled – but rather than ask for an explanation, he nodded. “Fine, I vill take you and Archie back to zhe base.  You haff been strong enough for zhe day, I zhink...”

“Oh, it was horrible...”, Sam admitted, shivering.  “He _hates_ me, I know he does... and why shouldn't he, I probably broke his heart.”

“Vell, yes, but I do not zhink he hatez you, meine Freundin.  Ich habe's auch gehörd – I heard it too, vhen herr Dillinger told you he smelled of smoke.  He has given in to zhe pyromania again.  And he probably just is frustrated vizh zhat...”

“'Ey, Sam – don't ya worry 'bout Dante, okay?  He don't hate ya – how can anyone hate a sweet, lovely dame like you?!  ...Let's just go back ta base an'... play a game or somethin', 'kay?”  Then, grinning, he held up a telltale paper bag.  “Could be a drinkin' game – like, I play some Army of Death 4 Ultimate an' every time I kill anotha playah, ya gotta take a shot.”

“...I don't know...”, Sam said, and the medic seemed to be in agreement with her hesitation, but Archie pulled Sam into a hug and grinned.

“Trust ya buddy Archie when it comes ta gettin' over a dude, Sam – ain't no way bettah to deal with a guy bein' all anal 'bout ya than gettin' hammered an' doin' shots for shits an' giggles!  I promise ya, it'll be a lot bettah than worryin' all night!”

That much, Sam couldn't argue with.


	14. Standing in the way of control

“...Jeez, what was that all about...”, Billy muttered, causing Gabriel to sigh.  Sam running out felt partly satisfying because _she_ had been the one to wrong _him_ so it was only _right_ for her to feel the consequences; but partly, it felt horrible.  She'd not acted as if nothing had happened, like he'd thought she would.  Instead of looking just like she had the previous week, she'd looked very much like she hoped to blend into the background of the bar, all dark clothes and pale face; just like him, she'd barely touched her food; and _unlike_ him, she'd merrily drunk with Archie and she'd played poker with abandon, which was witnessed by the significant reduction in cash of the rest of the men when he sat down to play, between Yaroslav and Grant.  The engineer had looked at the door sadly, he'd noticed, almost as if he'd been hoping for a better response from her as well.

“Okay, Jane, ya wanted me in here, so deal me in.”, the pyro spoke up as soon as he sat down, and the soldier nudged his head at the cards Sam had dropped in reply.

“Pick hers up, flamer – her bet's still ridin'-”

“Okay, okay – jeez, j'le sais, pas de raison pour tout expliquer...”, Gabriel said, gritting his teeth, causing Grant to look at him and quietly speak to him.

“...Son, y'ain't looked okay all evenin'...”

“I'm fine, Grant.”, he responded, looking at Sam's cards and raising an eyebrow.  She'd dropped _a pair of kings_ to get away from him?  Not to mention that, she hadn't picked her bet back up from the table either, and she'd been pale as a ghost when Jane called him over.  She also hadn't tried talking to him – which, of course, he didn't mind, because he'd probably have become angry again – and had instead stuck to Archie and doctor Steinheim's sides like white on rice, nearly desperately so.  “...Putain...”, he whispered, and the engineer found that cause to speak up again, accurately guessing the subject of his thoughts.

“Sam were tellin' me earlier she wished she told ya straight from tha start that she couldn't give ya her heart.  Son, ah kin guess what happened las' weekend, but 's clear that she-”

“Look, Grant, I don't care what _she_ thinks about it, she fuckin' said we have to forget 'bout each other, what kind of person does that?!”, he said, barely managing to keep his voice down to an irate whisper – as soon as he'd finished speaking, he downed the glass of vanilla gin he'd brought to the table in one and motioned to the bartender for another.  “...She said it for a _reason-_ ”

“Yeah, tha' reason bein' she don't want yeh gittin' hurt – she's been keepin' her sights on yeh all evenin', son, that ain't the way someone that ain't interested behaves-”

“No, that's the way someone that _wants_ to cause hurt behaves.  She... I gave her my heart an' she _spat_ on it, Grant – and keep ya goddamn nose outta this before I punch it _into your face_.”, Gabriel said, adding the latter when the engineer seemed to want to disagree to his statement.

The truth was, he mused as he followed Radovan's raise, that he'd started making fires again, driven to it by the thought of Sam and the way she'd looked that evening – and where he'd resented himself for not being able to control his impulses before, now he firmly blamed Samantha for it.  Every time he'd lit yet another stack of wooden debris and paper, he'd spoken to the thought of her, telling her it was _her fault_ that he'd had to resort to burning his worries away again.  Every time he'd watched the flames licking the wood, consuming it, he'd found himself wishing to see the flames consume Sam, removing her from his life... but every time the fire died out – ever since that first time on Wednesday... he'd found that the fire didn't eliminate his problems.  As soon as the flames fell away and he tried to bask in the relaxed, detached feeling watching the fire had given him, he found himself thinking about the even _better_ feeling that laying next to Samantha had provided, and all his worries naturally swooped back in from there.  He didn't know why he bothered to light another fire, but the need for it was just too great.  And, he'd mused miserably every time, some relaxation was better than none at all, even if it was just a ghost of the utterly satisfying feeling of inner calmth he'd only found at the hands of his fellow pyro.  That option was gone forever.

The game had reached the showdown in the meantime, which was only between Grant, Dell and him – Dell showed that he'd been bluffing, and when he revealed his king pair which gave him three of a kind, Grant shook his head and showed his hand to be a simple pair of jacks.

“Nice going, Danti!”, Radovan admitted, grinning at him, but he groaned and muttered a vague excuse before heading to the toilet.  Once in there, he relieved his full bladder and then, once he'd properly buttoned up his trousers again, leaned against the wall next to the door.  All night, he'd been thinking of Sam – of how she'd look and how painful seeing her would be before she turned up, and then, once she'd seen him, how to keep ignoring her and at the same time keep an eye on how she behaved with the others.  He didn't know why that had been so important to him: if she'd been laughing and joking around with the men, what would change for him?  If she'd not showed up, would he have been any less tense during dinner and the following hours?  If she hadn't ran away, would he have talked to her anyway?  Maybe even gotten her to-

“Merde, Dantan, arrête d'espérer et de rêver, elle ne va pas se raviser!”

“What ain't Sam gonna do?”, came a voice from one of the stalls – to his surprise, Gabriel noticed Billy emerge from it, looking a little annoyed.  “I swear, ya ain't makin' sense – last week, ya were _all ovah_ her, an' I know ya got laid, the two of ya – but now ya ain't even _talkin'_ to her, an' she looks like the devil pissed on her birthday cake-”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.”, Gabriel said, rolling his eyes.  “An', well, nothin' makes sense to me either.  It's all just fucked up, an' _she_ made it that way.”, he said, and now the scout looked surprised.

“Sam fucked things up?  ...That... how'd she do that?”, the scout asked, causing Gabriel to groan again.  He and Billy had spoken a couple of times since they'd ended their relationship, always politely, with an element of distance to their conversations, as if they both knew it was awkward for them to be talking – in a distant corner of his mind, the connection between that fact and the way he and Sam had avoided each other was made and instantly disregarded – but they'd been friendly before they'd been lovers and Gabriel was desperate to vent to someone, so he sighed and spoke up.

“...Yeah, so we got laid, an' then I slept over at her side, in her bed, but the next morning... she tells me we can't be together, that we'd best _forget_ each other, that it can't work because of some shitty reasons – I mean, I _know_ she's still healin' from the shit she's been through, and I _know_ I'm a high-maintenance guy, but to say it isn't ever gonna fuckin' happen, that's just _cruel_ , y'know?”  Billy nodded slowly, clearly trying to process what he'd said, and then he spoke softly.

“Well, Gabe, she ain't right in tha head, treatin' ya like that.  I mean, when ya told me ya wanted _her_ more'n ya wanted me-”

“Yeah, can ya believe I regret havin' thought that could've worked out?”, Gabriel admitted, groaning and leaning back against the wall again, feeling like banging his head into the cold tiles until he'd stop feeling hurt.  “...Man, Will, how could she even _think_ about forgettin' our friendship?  How could she think that _this fucked-up situation_ 's better than things bein' a little awkward?  ...How could she fuckin' _do_ this to me?!”, he said loudly, feeling like his entire body was cramping up with the combination of anger and sorrow, and the scout instinctively reached out to hold him.

“...'Ey, Gabriel, man... she ain't seem like that bad a chick... and, well, I kinda undahstand why ya so angry – when ya ended things with me, I thought for days 'bout just askin' Grant if I could stay in his room with 'im for, like, permanent... 'cause I really didn't wanna see ya – simply 'cause I didn't know what to say to ya.  I even _hated_ ya for a couple'a days for puttin' me through shit-”

“Fuck, Will, it isn't like I wanted you to suffer...”, Gabriel said, putting a hand on the scout's shoulder, shaking his head to dismiss the thought that maybe what he felt now was what Billy had felt when their relationship had ended.  However, the scout seemed hell-bent on making him consider it.

“Well, d'you think _Sam_ wants _you_ to suffer?  'Course she don't, man, she cares 'bout ya!  If she wanted ta hurt ya, she woulda told ya to take a hike when ya first told her ya wanted her.  ...Not that I ain't kinda glad she said no to ya, Dante.”, he admitted a second later, leaning a little closer to the pyro.  “...I kinda missed ya, man...”

“How d'you mean?”, Gabriel asked, looking the scout over – it hardly surprised him when their lips met and they kissed heatedly.  An entire week of just the thought of Sam's body and his left or right hand had meant that the pyro was more than eager for the escape, and so, when Billy unbuttoned his pants and started stroking his already half-hardened member, he merely threw his head back and groaned.  Those soft, almost girly hands of his former boyfriend were enough to make him breathe heavily in mere seconds.  “Ah, merde... Will, _fuck it_ , use your mouth, I ain't in the mood for a handjob-”

“Jeez, Gabe, ya mind not makin' the demands?”, Billy reacted, though he dropped to his knees and complied, groaning as Gabriel instantly started rolling his hips, driving himself deeper than the scout intended to let him.  It took him surprisingly little time to finish.  And as Billy grinned at him and got up, moving into a toilet stall and beckoning for him, it took Gabriel surprisingly little effort to silence the little mental voice that berated himself for choosing cheap, easy and fleeting pleasures to try and get over the true joy he'd tasted.

 

“Movin' out!”

“Hmmthsshhhhmmmm!”  Sam raised her gloved hand, thumb up, at Dell, her flamethrower fully stocked with gasoline thanks to the dispenser he'd placed in an alcove nearby and her every sense focused on the battle that raged no more than fifty feet away, on the other side of the rockface, inside the building there.  “Hrrrr?”

“'s As good a place as any, Sam, pardner.”, the engineer admitted, placing the heavy box in his hands down on the ground, where the sentry automatically deployed again, dual machine guns and all.  “How're yeh doin', by the way?”, he then asked, and Sam lifted her mask off her face to be able to answer properly.

“...I... good.”, she said, trying to sound cheerful as she said it but failing, evidently, because the engineer shook his head slowly.

“Now, Sam, ah don'' know what's th'worst'a this: yeh thinkin' ah'm a fool, yeh not trustin' me with whatever it is that's botherin' yeh, or yeh lyin' t'a friend.”  It was that last word that had Sam sigh sadly and sag to the ground, all pretense of paying attention to her surroundings falling away.

“...Gabriel.”, she simply said, and Dell nodded.

“Yeah, saw th'way the two'a yeh were actin' last Saturday – hard t'miss yeh practic'ly runnin' away from the man yeh were all buddy-buddy with the weekend 'fore.  ...So yew an' him-”

“Yes.”, Sam quickly answered before he could ask the question: just the _thought_ of that night hurt her now, more so because how much she regretted ever having felt the panic she had than because she regretted the night itself.  “Yes, and now... now everything's gone.  He's not my friend anymore, Dell, and I thought I could manage until I saw the looks he gave me.  I think... I think he hates me now, and he has every right to hate me because _I broke his heart_.”, she added softly, causing the engineer to raise his hardhat a little to scratch his temple, which he seemed to always do when contemplating a difficult problem, before patting Sam's shoulder.

“Ah don't think he hates yeh, Sam – y'ain't seen how surprised he were when yeh ran las' Saturday.  Downed his drink in one when he sat down on the doctor's spot.”

“Dell... I appreciate that you're trying to make me feel better, but I know what I saw.  If he doesn't hate me, then he's not far from it anymore.  ...Besides, he... it's all screwed up now.  I should... move on with my life-”

“Only yeh can't, huh?”, Dell said sympathetically, and Sam found herself nodding.  Since that Saturday evening, she'd felt distracted in anything she did: barely eating her portion, burning two dinners in a row, her performance in battle mediocre at best.  And at night, on top of the nightmares she'd already had about Michael falling and she being unable to save him, she had new nightmares: about being lit on fire by scarred hands, or about not being able to breathe.  Or – which were the worst of all – _feverish dreams_ about being with the man once more and _not_ panicking...  It had been a wonder that she hadn't gone insane yet, she mused: between Michael's suicide, her parents' disowning her, being forced to basically give up her life in England due to her burns and being forced into an entirely different life in America, the real startling discovery was that somehow, some way, her sanity held on even through yet another crisis that ran deeper than she could have ever guessed.

“...Dell, I _know_ I made a mistake, I do.  I should've never said that we couldn't be friends anymore.  I should've said 'okay, we happened to sleep together, but I'm not ready for a relationship' – hell, he _knew_ I wasn't ready for anything serious, I'd _told_ him so before we...  A-anyway... I... let's just go back to the battle now.  I can't... I can't.”  The engineer nodded, his expression compassionate and his voice soft and somewhat melancholic as he took out his shotgun.

“Yeah, we've been dawdlin' here long 'nough now, huh, pardner?  ...Yew go an' join Jane an' Tavish, ah'll manage – yeh've been wantin' tuh take point all week...”  Sam put her gas mask back on and turned to her friend once more before running off.

“Khhhhmmm mhhh phnnnn hrrrrr khhhmnn mmmmphhhh thhhhth thhhhshhhhhphhnnnshhrrrrr, hhhhkhhh?”

“Will do.”, he said, waving her off as she ran through the winding hewn-out corridors to the actual front, finding the soldier and the demoman just finishing off Billy when she arrived.  Kicking his disembodied foot away, Jane turned to her.

“Sam, good timing!  Go an' tell truckie to move his dispenser up, we need it over at the third point!”  For a moment, Sam meant to argue and say that she'd just left Dell – for a split second of that moment, she felt like cursing the soldier out for giving her 'babysit duty', as she called having to protect the engineer, yet again and thinking that she didn't have any other uses – but she realized that she would just be working out her frustration on the soldier that way, so she nodded.

“Hmmmmm thmmm.  Phmmmm hmmm hmmmm hmph phrrrr mmmm!”  Tavish chuckled and nodded, reloading his sticky-grenade launcher ominously before setting off into the corridor with it, leaving Sam to sigh heavily and double back on her footsteps, finding the engineer already present at his dispenser.  “Thmmmm, Hmmmm hmmmthsh hmmm thhhh thmmmkh hrrrrr thhhshhhphhhnnnshhrrrr hmmmph thmm thhh...”  She faltered a little before she could finish the message, suddenly feeling dizzy.  “...Thhmm thhhh thhrrrrth...”, she muttered a little more softly – everything was spinning around her, the outlines of the world fuzzy and Dell seeming so far away.  “Thrrrrthhh... hhhh...”, she whispered by then, the world going dark around her like a television set being turned off, and she felt herself slump.  So her inattentiveness had gotten her killed – maybe by headshot, meaning Chris had once again found a difficult position to snipe from, or by backstab again.  However, her body didn't stop feeling heavy like lead – normally, if she'd gotten sent to respawn, the process made her body feel light as a feather while her wounds were healed or her body restored; but now her limbs felt as if they'd been chained to the ground with thick iron bands, disabling her.  Distantly, she could hear Dell's voice.

_“S-sam?  Sammy, pardner?  Aw, shit!  ...Ceasefire!  Callin' for a ceasefire, y'all, drop yer weapons!  ...Cease fire, dagnabbit, Dante!  If'n yeh send 'er tuh respawn now, she could be out fer th'rest'a her life!”_   Vaguely, she heard a few sounds – a scuffle?  The sound of her flamethrower?  A shotgun?  A cry for help? – and then she heard a horn sound in the distance, and a plethora of noise around her.  Voices talking pell-mell, an angry one among them.  And then her mind blanked as well.

The next thing she knew, as she opened her eyes, was that she lay on a soft bed, between cool sheets smelling of disinfectant and something spicy, and of her arm stinging.  She tried to sit up but instantly a throbbing pain shot through her head, like a bullet ricocheting off her skull, and she groaned, alerting the attention of the medic that had been sitting at a desk on the other end of the medbay.

“Ah, Zamantha, you are vizh us again!  You gave all of us a good zcare...”

“W-what happened?  ...Why is there a saline drip in my arm?  Did the respawn malfunction?”, she asked, and the medic shook his head somewhat sorrowfully.

“Nein, you vere not killed, Zam... you, uh, fainted.”

“I fainted?”, she repeated, feeling incredulous and sounding that way as well.  “...I... how did I...”

“You haff barely touched your  breakfast zhis morning, und your dinner last night... und Archie haz told me you haff been zleeping badly zhese last few nights.  Due to herr Dantan and all zhis... troubles... I presume.”, he said, and Sam sighed.  It was no use denying that she'd neglected herself a little after what had happened over the weekend.

“Yeah, I suppose all of that is a pretty sound explanation.  ...Wait, I... I was with Dell-”, she said, remembering where she'd been when she'd fainted, and the medic nodded.

“He called zhe ceasefire, but before his call could be heard, herr Dantan found zhe two of you-”

“-and he tried to torch me.”, Sam concluded, remembering the sound of a flamethrower and a shotgun.  Siegfried nodded, but it was another voice that answered, coming from the doorway on the other side of her, warm and southern and soothing.

“He tried it, yeah, but ah shot 'im an' sent 'im packin'.  Truth is, if'n yeh git sent t'respawn when yeh're out cold, there's a slight chance yeh git in a coma.  Siegfried healed my burns, so y'ain't even see that ah fought with Dante anymore... but ah 'spect he'll have a few choice words tuh say 'bout me next weekend-”

“Oh, don't... don't bring up weekends, please?”, Sam said feebly, causing Dell to walk closer to her and look at her gently before speaking.

“Sam, yeh gotta talk t'Dante.  This's gittin'... outta hand...  Yeh're gonna have tuh live with 'im – both'a y'all got a lifetime contract with the comp'ny.”

“I know... a-and I want to talk... I really, really want to talk... but I'm afraid he'll... snap and... _oh god_ , Dell, I don't even know _what to think_ anymore, it's-”  Again, she started breathing rapidly, and again Siegfried handed her a tranquilizer that she duly took, after which she relaxed back onto the bed again, hearing the medic and the engineer talk as if they were standing across the medbay.

“...Zhe ist ztill weak, so now is not zhe good time to bring zhis up, Dell... but you have a point.  Zamantha und herr Dantan must talk zhis out.  ...Maybe you and your colleague, herr Dillinger...?”

“Grant's th'only one apart from Billy that Gabriel listens tuh, so yeah, ah'll ask 'im.  ...Don't expect no miracles, though...”  Dell paused, evidently looking over at Sam and then, seeing her eyes closed and presuming she was asleep, he continued: “...Gabriel really came at 'er tuhday, even seein' her down.  S-she said he maybe hates 'er, an' ah'm not really disinclined tuh think so considerin' his behavior tuhday.”  Sam's heart felt like it had been stabbed.  Gabriel really _did_ hate her, and he'd been trying to get her... well, not killed, because even during a ceasefire the respawn machine worked, but disabled.  Silently, she cried bitter tears of mingled regret and powerlessness, wishing things had gone differently – wishing that she wasn't so utterly alone...

 

Gabriel gritted his teeth as he put on his shoes, Grant standing in the doorway to keep an eye on him – whether to make sure he didn't drink any more or to make sure he didn't waste time, the pyro neither knew nor cared about.  All he knew was that the engineer had woken him up at eight and told him they needed to go to the BLU side – the reason for that was more than clear to him, since news of Sam's little fainting episode had travelled around the base like wildfire.  Again, like when she'd all but fled from him on Saturday, he was of two minds: part of him wanted her to suffer for what she'd done to him, but another part of him ached.  It had been the former part that had driven him to continue his attack even when he'd seen that she was down; the latter part was why he'd sat in respawn after Dell had shot him to shreds, head bent and tears falling on the tile floor.  Sam was hurting, and he hoped that it was because of him, but at the same time he hurt along with her.

“...Merde, vieillard... stop lookin' at me, I ain't a piece of meat.”, he ground out, feeling irritated most of all at the moment, with Grant doing little to make his annoyance ebb away.  On the contrary, the engineer snorted and shook his head.

“Yeh throw yerself 'round like one, though – first Billy an' yew have a go in the bathroom'a the bar, then last Tuesday it was yew an' Graeme misbehavin' in the showers... oh, an' let's not forget Chris, that were Thursday mornin'... and evenin'... ah'm surprised y'even able tuh _stand_ what with the things yeh git intuh.  Now c'mon, Sam ain't gon' like-”

“Je m'en fous d'elle, Grant, vraiment.”, he said, glaring at the engineer who, unsurprisingly, glared right back, his tone of voice matching the pyro's.

“Well, yeh c'n go right t'hell along with 'er, Dante – yeh're bein' impossible, jus' like yeh've been all last week 'cept yew were better at hidin' the fact.  Now _git_ – nevermind Sam's patience, yeh're tryin' _mine_.”

“Vas t'foutre, Grant.”, Gabriel bit back, though he fell in line and walked out of his room.  A part of him wanted to see Sam, just to see if she really was as badly as Grant had hinted at; but he didn't know whether he'd laugh or cry when that turned out to be true.  He didn't know whether he would punch her or reach out for her if she'd speak about her side of the story.

He didn't know whether he loved her or hated her.

Sure, a lot of the time he hated her – when he once again burnt something and blamed her, when he slept with someone else and didn't get the satisfaction she'd given him, when he'd drunk himself to sleep at night just to escape the dreams he had of her – but he also still longed for her as well, feeling miserable knowing that they probably would never talk again.  And hoping, hoping beyond hope...

“...Son?”  Gabriel looked up to see Grant stand next to him, pointing to the opened door.  Groaning mentally, the pyro walked inside, trying his hardest not to think about the last time he'd walked in through that door, with Sam pulling him along... or how he'd pushed her against the inside of that door impatiently...

“Ah, there y'all are!”, Dell said – the BLU engineer was dressed in a lighter blue shirt than the one he wore on the battlefield over some plain jeans.  “C'mon in.”, he added, pointing into the living room, where Gabriel noticed Archie sitting in the sofa looking at him tensely – and by his side sat Sam, looking at the blank television set, knees pulled up to her chest, wearing an oversized T-shirt and loose shorts.

Gabriel's heart gave a slight squeeze at the sight of her.  Her hair was still tangled, as if she'd slept until five minutes before their meeting, and her eyes were slightly unfocused.  Even her bright clothes and the way she nervously fiddled with some minor trinket didn't distract from the fact that she had the air of a deeply wounded, ailing woman.  'Good...', Gabriel thought vindictively, and instantly after, he cursed himself out mentally for the thought.  'Merde, j'peux pas voir la souffrir.  Merde, merde, merde.  Dantan, que vas-tu faire?  Lui faire mal, ou lui embrasser?  ...Ou lui oublier?', he added, his mind swishing between all three options until she spoke up.  He almost didn't hear her at first because of how soft she spoke, but then the words registered.

“...Gabriel... I... don't want to go on like this... p-please... tell me...”  She swallowed the obvious lump that had risen in her throat – or, he thought as he noticed her swallow again, maybe it wasn't so much a lump as a portion of bile.  “I can't go on not s-sleeping, not eating... not knowing...”  Again, she paused, and this time Gabriel noticed her grip the trinket she'd been fidgeting with tightly enough for her knuckles to go white.  “Gabriel... do you... t-think we could... go back to being friends?”

“No.”  He spoke it calmly, but felt anything but calm: on the inside, his mind was _boiling_ with anger that had risen suddenly and overpowered his longing to just say yes and accept her back into his life, silencing the voice that said 'better be her friend than lose her altogether' and 'you weren't well either the past two weeks'.  It swept over him, causing him to turn his back on her in a futile attempt to calm again – when it didn't work and his anger only mounted, he turned back to her, seeing her wide-eyed, startled, _devastated_ expression without properly noticing it.  “No, Sam, we can't go back to bein' friends.  Not now, not later, not ever!  _You_ killed that two weeks ago!”

“I know... I know, but I-”, she started, trying to reach out to him, only for him to step back and scowl at her.

“Mais quoi, huh, _quoi?_ I gave ya my _heart, my fuckin' heart –_ and all you did was _shit on it_!  No, I'm through with ya, Sam.  I ain't givin' you another chance.  I wish I never slept with ya.  I wish I'd never _met_ ya.”

“G-gabriel, _don't..._ ”, she pleaded – he had no notice for the tears that now fell heavy from her eyes or the way her entire body shook with sobs held back; all that he paid attention to was the burning feeling in his chest, the grim satisfaction at finally airing his anger at _her_ in _person_.

“Tu penses que j'suis un idiot, ou quoi?!  T'as jamais me voulu, t'as juste voulu me faire mal-”

“ _I n-ne-never wanted t-to hurt you!_ ”  She nearly spat up the words from amid deep, heaving breaths, crying freely, but Gabriel couldn't halt himself even if he wanted to.  Now that he'd let out his anger and frustration, it kept coming, like a tidal wave of pure loathing.

“ _You_ caused me to turn back to my sin, _you_ caused me to lose all interest in anythin' I liked before... no matter how much I drink or who I'm with or what I do, it all comes back down to _you_ and the way you _fuckin' abused my heart and my trust!_ I wish I'd never met ya, _et j'vais t'jamais pardonner, t'entends, jamais!_   You can _die_ for all I care!”  He felt his hands itch, and when she reached out for him again, looking distraught with grief, it was all too easy to lash out and hit her with the flat of his palm, causing her entire body to fall sideways out of the sofa where she remained, a shivering, _crying_ mess – and he stomped off, still enraged but at the same time mindful of the fact that he'd just hit her.  Ignoring both engineers' cries and Archie's angry shouts – the scout had indeed looked about ready to kill him – he headed back outside, slamming the doors shut behind him, and then stalked back off to the other side of the base.  However, instead of entering the RED barracks again, he walked further, to the respawn room, hoisting himself up to the roof via a small windowsill off to the side and laying flat on the roof, looking at the sky and allowing the rest of his anger to burn off while mentally cursing the other pyro out for everything she'd done and all she _hadn't_ done.

After half an hour, the rage was gone.  Looking at the clouds passing by, Gabriel felt empty – his heart felt like it'd been torn out, his mind felt numbed, his body anaesthetized by the aftereffects of the adrenaline that had had his heart pumping before – and he was just about to doze off when voices drifted his way.

“...don't know if'n she'll recover from this... Grant, if'n Gabriel's in 's bad as he is... maybe we oughta consider havin' one of 'em leave?”  Dell and Grant were evidently talking to each other – and a third person was also present judging by the footsteps.

“...Yeah, maybe – doc, what d'yew think?”  The sigh that preceded the third man's voice and the fact that doctor Hardass hadn't known anything about what had gone on meant that it had to be the BLU medic, doctor Steinheim.

“...Es ist schwierig... it iz a difficult zituation.  Zamantha haz zhe right kind of background for zhe job – but Gabriel has been here longer, not to mention he ist better suited for zhis line of work.  ...Ach... zhe truzh is zhat Zamantha could eazily rebuild her life – herr Dantan... he is lozt.  ...Or zhat vould be my opinion before zhis happened.”  Gabriel almost shouted out a very colourful expletive at the man, but stopped when he suddenly realized what the medic was implying.  Sam had looked wounded, and she hadn't even raised her arms to defend herself when he'd hit her... not to mention she had pleaded with him for their friendship, crying, sobbing out loud in front of the men of her team.  She was more than just suffering.  Thoughts of her telling him about her brother came back and he felt remorse hit him.  Had he driven her to such despair?  He'd said he wouldn't care if she'd die, but he _did_.

Suddenly, the thought hit him that he was going to lose Sam from his life altogether, and that pained him even more than her denying him had.

“...Darn it... well, if'n this ain't solve itself soon... we're gonna have tuh git th'Administrator involved-”, Dell said, to which Grant reacted in a way that had Gabriel feel just a little less upset.

“Let me have a word with Gabe firs' – Administrator's always mistrusted 'im.  Said he needed extra watchin', what with all 'is trouble-seekin'.”  The pyro grinned: he and Grant had built up a kind of understanding through the years, which didn't always go easy but which enabled them to discuss subjects that nobody else got him to open up about, until Sam.  It was nice to know that that understanding still lasted – though the extent to which it did became doubtful when the engineer continued: “...though ah think she might be ontuh somethin', 'specially after this... ah mean, he were angry, but how angry d'yeh gotta be tuh see a cryin', defenseless, beggin' _woman_ an' _hit 'er_?!”  Those words stung – as the men walked away again, each heading back to their own part of the compound, Gabriel felt each individual syllable cut into his heart like the slash of a knife.  Sam had been crying, she'd been defenseless, she'd been begging for him to not hate her... and he had lashed out at her.  She'd been down, and he had _kicked her_.  The sight of her as she spoke appeared in front of his mind's eye again and for the first time, he felt regret.  His stomach twisted at the sight of her tears, and his left arm suddenly _burned_.  Now there were two women who had hurt him, two women whom he couldn't forgive – two women that were in tears because of him.

“...Merde...”, he groaned, moving off the roof and looking around for one of his secret stashes of vanilla gin, even if he knew that no amount of alcohol could make him forget what he'd done or feel any less horrible for that matter.

 

“...Sam?  ...Sam, sistah, we're all goin' to the bar now... ya sleep well, y'hear?”  Archie's voice dropped to a whisper when he noticed she had her eyes closed, but the pyro heard his every word clearly.  As soon as the last footsteps died away from the hallway, she opened her eyes again and sighed shakily.  The tranquilizer Siegfried had given her that afternoon, together with a sleeping tablet, had kept her sleep light and her head clear, but now they were wearing off and the horrible, horrible images from that morning returned.  Gabriel's enraged face, his harsh words – harsh, she mused, but _truthful –_ and the way he'd hit her...  She bit her lip in order not to sob again.  She had to be strong now.  Because she knew the answer to her problems.  Just like before, when things had gone wrong the exact same way – the thought brought a wry smile to her face that turned to a frown almost instantly – the only way to resolve the situation was to remove herself from the scene.

Getting up from the bed, she got out one of her smaller bags – a sports bag she could sling over her shoulder – and loaded a few sets of clothing into them, along with a second set of sneakers and some personal hygiene items.  Then, walking to the kitchen, she took a pack of biscuits, a few bottles of mineral water and a bunch of carrots and put them in a plastic bag, which she took to her room and added to her bag.

“...Oh... I wish... I wish it didn't have to be this way...”, she sighed, shaking her head and pushing on, finding strength somehow.  It _had_ to be done.  She knew she couldn't bear any more days of misery, of not eating, not sleeping, not being able to relax despite everyone's best efforts... of doing an absolutely shitty job, too...  She couldn't take disappointing everyone anymore.

Taking a pen and a piece of paper, she wrote a quick note to Dell, which she could leave in his room, on his desk – because no matter how quietly she meant to leave, she knew she owed her team, her _friends_ , an explanation.

_'Dear Dell, I'd like to thank you for all you've done – you, Siegfried, Yaroslav, Grant, and Archie, you're all such wonderful friends and I certainly will write to you again.  Secondly, please don't blame yourself for this, this is my decision.  I hope you'll see, in time, that this was the only way to solve all of our problems.  As soon as I make it back to Damien, in New York, I'll write a lengthy letter of resignation, accompanied by my sincerest apologies, to Katchan and to Builders League United.  And then, I guess I'll go back to England, to pick up the pieces of my life there.  Perhaps there, I'll have more luck in life.  I'll never forget you guys – all of you.  Even Gabriel.'_ , she wrote, hesitating before adding the slightest confession: _'It's heartbreaking to know that you threw away the best thing that ever happened in your life just because you were afraid of it.  All my love, Samantha Tennant.'_   Nodding in satisfaction, she folded the slip of paper – but then, she caught herself staring at the empty notepad and she started writing again, tears welling up in her eyes as she did.

_'Dear Gabriel... please don't throw this letter away.  I wanted to give you the goodbye you deserve.  I am a coward, a bloody coward – I ran away from you, and I'm doing it again because you've made it very clear you won't stand for me throwing away your love like I did.  I regret it.  I can't tell you how much I regret it because words wouldn't suffice and images are pale compared to the pain I caused myself to suffer because I was afraid.  But this is not about my mistakes, this is about giving you a proper farewell note._

_By tomorrow morning, I'll be on the train to Chicago, and from there I'm heading on to New York, to Damien, where I'll arrange my affairs here in America and head back to England.  This is my farewell note because we'll never meet again.  I hope Billy treats you well.  I hope you'll overcome your pyromania – oh god, I didn't know you'd started up again... please be safe.  Please don't be Lander.  I never knew him, but he sounds like he had a lot of potential, and you loved him as a friend so that means I would've liked him too.'_ Sam had to halt at that point to wipe her tears off the page, slightly smearing the ink of some of the words – taking a shaky breath, she continued to write, biting her lip just to keep herself from tearing the paper and just running.

_'...I don't want to end on a sad note, so let me tell you this last thing.  I looked up that song you sang the first night we met – not the karaoke song, but the one you were singing to yourself as I walked back from the toilet.  'Chantelle' – or, uh, 'Coeur de Caramel', there's actually two versions, but I think you meant the one that's sung by a woman.  And I just wanted you to know 't'as mon amour éternelle, mon coeur de caramel'.  It sounds stupid but it's true.  Sometimes you have to throw away a good thing to know it wasn't just good, it was the best and it's never coming back.  So farewell, Gabriel, have a wonderful life, and forget about the one that ran.  Samantha.'_ As soon as she had placed that dot behind her name, Sam felt anxiety hit again, and she took one of the few tranquilizers that Siegfried had left her, wincing at the bitter taste in her mouth.  Picking up the half-filled bottle of lemonade on Archie's desk, she downed it without properly tasting, smacking her lips when the last of it was gone.  It had been... surprisingly spicy, she mused absent-mindedly as she picked up her bag and slowly closed the door behind her.  Quickly, she ran to the letterbox just inside of the base's wall to put the letter to Gabriel there, and then she headed back to the other exit of the grounds, which was behind the parking lot on her team's side.  That road wouldn't lead her through the town, where the others would spot her, but to a small back road that led to a small village a little further off, from where she could still go to the town to take the bus to Effingham.

The first indication that something was wrong came when she felt her heartbeat become erratic as she crossed the parking lot – and quickly, it went downhill: the palpitations became so bad that she started to hyperventilate again, not out of fear but out of sheer necessity, and she started to head back to the compound.  But at that point, it was already too late, for before she could even reach into her trouser pocket to take out her key, she'd lost consciousness, long before she even hit the ground.

 

“...'Ey, Dante, what's up?  What's with the sulkin'?  I thought ya were over it by now...”, Billy said, causing Gabriel to look up from his glass.  Again, it was the first glass he'd ordered – he'd already drunk considerably before even arriving at the bar, but this time the alcohol seemed to have no effect whatsoever, and adding it glass per glass seemed futile, so he abstained.

“Oh, Will, just... just go an' hang 'round with Archie, please-”

“Yeah, well, _he_ ain't no fun either, he's all hung up 'bout Sam.  Apparently she ain't been good.”, the scout said obliviously, shaking his head as if disbelieving the statement he'd just uttered even more.  “Well, maybe she ain't been good, what with her faintin' an' all, but if ya believe Arch', she's been near-death all through tha week.”  Gabriel just grunted, unable to give an actual fleshed-out answer.  His drinking had done nothing to relieve the burden of guilt from him – in fact, it had _added_ to it.  Because the more he'd drunk, the more he'd felt oddly sober and relieved of all the drama he'd been hiding behind, all the accusations he'd made against Sam because he hadn't wanted to admit that they'd been all his own burden to bear.  He'd accused Sam of having started his pyromania again, when in reality he'd just been looking for a way to escape the pain – Sam had nothing to do with that.  She'd been blunt with him, painfully so, in an attempt to _not_ hurt him, in fact.  The same went for the drinking and – in an even higher degree – the sleeping around he'd indulged him.  Especially the latter had made him feel dirty all afternoon, to the point where he'd showered again and scrubbed his skin vigorously until he'd had to stop because he thought it'd be a little obvious if he showed up to their mixed team Saturday evening dinner with bandages all over his arms.

“...Maybe I should go an' talk to him-”, Gabriel started, and the scout unsurprisingly held him back with an expression of worry.

“No, man, d'ya wanna get killed?  He said ya hurt Sam – well, as far as I know, it was the otha way 'round, but hey, what do _I_ know, huh? – an' that he ain't wanna talk to ya until you an' her are talkin' again.  So I...”  As Billy droned on, Gabriel finally downed his glass of liquor, ignoring the burning it caused in his stomach, and got up.

“Gotta go take a leak, don't wait 'round.”, he muttered, staggering slightly as he went to the bathroom, showing that his body at least was still affected by his alcohol abuse even if his mind wasn't and causing him to wish that it was the other way around.  'Is it too much to ask for to just drink myself into oblivion?', he mused as he emptied his bladder and rinsed his mouth with some tap water, washing away the sudden bitter taste that had entered his mouth.  'J'ai pas commis l'hérésie ou d'autre connerie... j'étais simplement... un connard...'  He groaned and leaned his head against his arm, which rested against the wall.  If he'd realized anything that afternoon, it was that Sam had maybe hurt him, but not as badly as she'd hurt herself – and he'd slung insults and profanities at her like only the most rotten and depraved of men would do.  Not to mention he'd hit her out of pure anger.  'Merde, j'suis un tel abruti, mais... mais j'ai pas l'intention de lui faire mal, pas comme ça...  J'dois parler à elle, donc...'  Exiting the bathroom, he made a beeline for the poker game where Dell and Grant sat, to ask them if they could accompany him to base so he could go and apologize – but Yaroslav had just left the game, and the engineers got him sitting down and dealt into the next hand before he had the chance to protest.

“Grant, j-j'dois... I need to speak to Sammy-”

“Think yeh did 'nough talkin' tuh her t'day, Gabriel, son.”, his own engineer said – and that, Gabriel mused miserably while looking away from the other engineer in shame, was putting it _tactfully_.  “...But if'n she's doin' okay t'morrah, Dell, d'you think it'll be a good idea?”

“Only if she wants it – an' if Gabriel promises t'keep his hands tuh 'imself.  Dante, pardner, yeh'll find I ain't no violent man, but if'n yeh do that t'Samantha 'gain, ah ain't gon' be so peaceful no more.  An' neither's anyone else on BLU.  What happened 'tween yew an' Sam – oh, yeah, ah'm followin'.”, he quickly said as Jane nudged him, before speaking on where he'd left off: “What happened two weeks ago 's 'tween yew an' Sam.  It ain't got nothin' t'do with me or anyone else.  But what happened this mornin' was yellah, son, plain an' simple, an' it was unprovoked.  Next time, use that anger t'better yerself instead'a lashin' out.”

“Don't I know it.”, Gabriel said drily, looking his cards over again.  A king and a queen – very good cards, considering the fact that the flop showed a ten and a jack along with a five – and yet, all he could think about was how Sam, had she been sitting there with them, would be doing her best not to let her grin show, because as certain as he was that the sun rose and rain fell down instead of up, he was just as sure that she'd have cards to beat all of them with.

However, suddenly, the medic of his own team stalked over to Dell, pale-faced and with a grim expression, and whispered something in his ear, causing the engineer to drop his cards face-up on the table and nearly fall backwards.

“ _W-whah?!_   Jesus, Mary an' Joseph!  Awrigh'... BLU TEAM, WITH ME!!”, he bellowed, causing five heads to instantly turn to him.  “We're goin' tuh base, right now!  Y'all _leave_ yer drinks an' yer games – this ain't no joke.  Doc Hartmann's comin' with us.  Arch', Arsène, Theo, y'all kin ride with him – Jane, Tav', yeh're with me.  The rest'a y'all, sorry, but this... Sweet Lord above, ah ain't got no time t'explain tuh all'a y'all, 'm sorry.”  The team trooped outside, all talking pell-mell while they went, doctor Hartmann pulling the protesting scout along and Dell dragging Jane backwards away from the table with surprising ease.  All in all, in less than a minute, the BLU team was gone from the bar and driving off back to base, leaving the remaining team members of RED in uncomfortable silence, which was broken by Billy's loud question.

“'s _Anyone_ know what the fuck's goin' on?!”

“Grant, Dell était assis à coté de toi... t'as entendu quelque chose?  Did you 'ear somesink?”, Pierre asked, and the engineer nodded, sighing.

“Yeah, unfortunately, ah have.”  Giving Gabriel a sympathetic look before he let his gaze drop to his hands, he continued: “...Apparently, doc Steinheim an' Yaroslav found Sam passed out on the parkin' lot with a bag'a clothes an' some still-warm vomit... from the looks'a things, she tried tuh kill 'erself, an' she's bein' resuscitated now.”


	15. Before I change again

“...Uuuhhh...”  Sam woke up to bright lights and worried faces that were unfocused but familiar.  She knew the bald head of Yaroslav, the square jaw and short-shaven head of Dell, Archie's mop of dark brown hair and his slender face... and then, the even darker hair and wire-rimmed glasses of doctor Steinheim came into view together with a man with blonde hair and horn-rimmed spectacles that she guessed had to be the other team's medic, doctor Hartmann, who was the first to speak up.

“Zhe haz opened her eyes, Siegfried!”

“...Oh, dank Gott...  Ve vere zcared for you, Zam.  Your heart haz ztopped twice zhis evening-”

“What... uh...”, she groaned, sitting up and instantly regretting the motion as her head throbbed and her body felt like it had been battered.  “...I feel like I was trampled by a herd of cattle...”, she admitted shakily, and the medic looked at the others in the room, motioning for them to go away obviously, because they neither protested nor lingered.  Dell stayed, though: his presence calmed Sam for some odd reason, she found.  Perhaps it was because the engineer had been the one to take her to her room and tuck her in earlier that day, even going so far as to very fatherly brush her hair out of her face as she fell asleep and tell her softly and reassuringly that it'd all work out.  However, she didn't hesitate to ask her question again, this time finishing it: “...What happened?  The last thing I remember, I was...”  She blushed as she remembered her earlier desperation and the actions it had driven her to.  “...I was going to go away-”

“Do you mean you... meant to?”, Siegfried asked, and suddenly it became clear to Sam what he meant and why he'd sent the rest away.  The team thought she'd tried to kill herself.

“What?  N-no... Siegfried, I meant literally _go away –_ I was going to walk to the city, sleep somewhere under the stars, take the bus to Effingham and go back to New York by train from there – not...  I would _never_...  Siegfried, I thought you knew...”

“Sam, yeh gotta understand why we can't believe yeh jus' yet.  Y'overdosed on tranquilizers an' drank half a bottle'a tha' ready-made cocktail Archie says he bought las' weekend on it, we were lucky t'find yeh in time.”, Dell said, and Sam shook her head incredulously.

“W-wait a minute, how can I have _overdosed_ on tranquilizers?  I only took one extra!”, she said, and Siegfried shook his head.

“You haff to haff taken at leazt five at once for zhis effect.  Zhere were sieben missing from zhe bottle I gave you-”

“S-seven?  Oh god, seven, I... _how could I not notice taking more than one?_ ”, Sam said, feeling more and more incredulous by the minute.  Then, however, she remembered something, a seemingly insignificant detail of the day before, and she paled, turning to the medic again.  “...I... the one extra I took tasted bitter...”

“Zhe meds are dezigned to have zhe bitter taste vhen zhey are not taken one by one.”, the medic said, nodding, and Sam slumped into the pillows, feeling horrible.  Had she really been so distraught that she'd taken _five_ pills at once instead of only _one_?  Had writing that letter to Gabriel really messed with her head so badly that she'd unwittingly poisoned herself?

Or, which was infinitely worse, had she somehow _deliberately done it_ and just... forgotten about it?

“Zamantha, if you vould pleaze give me your arm, I vill haff to do zome blood tests.”, Siegfried said, and Sam offered her left arm without a second thought.  Meanwhile, she looked at Dell.

“T-the rest were here too...”

“Yeah, but only Archie an' Yaroslav were allowed in 'ere, the rest jus' were sittin' in the livin' room after our crisis meetin'-”

“W-wait, crisis meeting?”, she asked, and Dell nodded.

“Yeah – in case yeh hadn't noticed, we're short a pyro now.  Nearly permanently.  ...Look, Sammy, we weren't discussin' kickin' yeh off the team, if'n yeh're worried-”, he said soothingly, and that tone was too much for Sam's still-overwrought nerves and she broke down, crying freely and feebly simply because her body couldn't muster pushing her grief out as powerfully as it had before.  “...H-hey now, c'mon, Sam, pardner... don't yeh cry...”

“Y-you don't u-understand, Dell... oh god...”, she gasped out in between sobs, gladly allowing herself to be hugged by the Texan.  “...I... I intended to _q-quit the te-team_...  I was-  I was so _distraught_ , I thought it was the _o-only way_!  Oh my god, I am s-so sorry...   I wrote you a letter... I-in your room, it's in your room...”

“Look, ah'll check it in a few, when yeh're all calmed down 'gain an' asleep – ah think all'a us kin use a good night's rest tuh... let things calm down 'gain...”, he said, again brushing her hair away from her face gently, causing Sam to nod.  Sleep sounded like it'd not only be welcome but also desperately needed.  However, doctor Steinheim seemed to think otherwise.

“Before I let you sleep, Zamantha, you haff to tell us vhot happened.  And be honest, meine Freundin – if ve cannot trust you... zhere may be need to haff you sent to zhe hospital.”  Sam nodded and started speaking about the increasing feeling of powerlessness and solitude she'd gotten, about how afraid she'd been of Gabriel both before and after he'd hit her, about feigning sleep, about her resolve to go away and quit, about the letters to Dell and to Gabriel – though she skimped over the contents of her letter to her fellow pyro – and finally about how she'd started feeling bad as soon as she'd started to walk off.  “...and my heart... It felt like someone had injected air into it-”

“Zhat, unfortunately, is zhe classic sign of a cardiac crizis... ach, Zamantha, you had zhe broken heart disease.”

“...There's such a thing?”, she asked, and the medic nodded.

“Zhere is a lot of evidence for it, too.  ...Ach, but we vill talk of zhis later – first, you need zhe sleep-”

“P-please, Siegfried, Dell, don't tell Archie about that, uh, 'broken heart disease' thing.  He might blame Gabriel – and after the way he hit me, I'm afraid Archie might try and break something of Gabriel's in revenge.  And Gabriel... can't take more hurt...”  She yawned, starting to stretch but abruptly ending that endeavor when shoots of pain shot through her entire body.  “...I think I could use a little shut-eye now... good night...”

“G'night, Sam, li'l lady...”, she heard Dell say softly, his smile apparent in his words – Siegfried could've added his own well-wishes for her night, but she didn't hear them anymore, sinking into a deep sleep that, for the first time in weeks, was deep and restorative.

 

“Gabriel, man, why ain't you goin' the hell to sleep?”, Billy said, groaning as he turned his back at the pyro.  “She ain't tried to kill herself cause'a you – _she_ was the one that said no to _you_ , remember?”

“Yeah, but I hit her...”  The scout's sound of disappointment was already a far cry from the way he'd shouted his head off at Gabriel when the pyro had explained everything that had happened, finally, to him, but it still stung slightly, and Gabriel still winced.  “...Merde, I hurt her, and she was cryin'.  I should've gone back and talked to her-”

“Ya should'a _thought_ , Dante.”, Billy said, sighing again.  “Look, man, ya plannin' on sleepin' any time soon?”

“No.”, Gabriel said truthfully.  No matter how much his body felt like it'd just grind to a sudden halt, no matter how much turmoil his mind was in, he couldn't sleep.  Sleeping would mean having nightmares again, and this time there wouldn't be anyone left to save him.  “J'sais même pas si elle est encore vivante ou non...”, he muttered, and Billy now groaned in earnest.

“Sure ya do – doc Hartmann said she was awake again, ain't he?  Besides, you're still breathin', right?  If Sam would'a died, the rest'a her team would'a come over here an' murdered ya – now _go the fuck to sleep_ 'fore _I_ murder ya instead.  ...Oh, _for fuck's sake_ , Dante, why am I even still sharin' a damn room with ya?!”, the scout flared up when Gabriel didn't move from his desk, grabbing his pillow and blanket and stalking past him to wake Grant up, leaving Gabriel sitting alone in the quiet of his room, where he considered, for the fifth time in a row, all of the things he _knew_ and all of the things he _presumed_.

'Sam's in a bad way – j'le sais.  It's because of me – je... pense.  Gotta be honest, I don't _know for sure_ if I- oh, who am I kiddin', j'sais que c'est à moi.  At least mostly.  ...Bien, donc... elle a voulu se suicider – je pense.  Maybe she... didn't wanna _die_ , per se...  I sure _hope_ she didn't wanna off herself – if she did, she ain't gonna be stopped, and that's...  Merde, Dantan, n'en pense pas...  ...Archie is gonna kill me next time we meet – j'le sais.  Doesn't take much to know that much.  ... _I'_ d wanna kill me, too.  ...Je dois lui parler, lui voir.  Ça, je sais.  So why the fuck ain't I _over there_?', he mused, answering his own question.  '...'Cause maybe she's gonna kill me.'  However, after another second of thought, he amended his thought: '...No, 'cause seein' her in pain and knowing it's my fault... _that_ 's gonna kill me.  Havin' her turn away from me completely now, _that's_ gonna kill me.  ...Mais j'dois le savoir.  Si je mourais, j'mourais.'  Slowly, he got up from behind his desk, quietly creeping into the hallway, slowly opening the window outside and sliding out of it.  On the other side of the compound, the window opened just as easily – just like he knew it would from back in the days when he'd had a few wild nights with Theo and Ben, Archie's predecessor – and once he was inside, the medbay was exactly where he'd thought it was.  The two sides of the base were mirror images of each other – the RED medbay was on the end of the main corridor, to the left; on the BLU side it was to the right.  Quietly, he snuck inside after peeking inside to make sure that there was no one in there anymore.

“...Sam?”, he whispered softly, but no reply came, causing him to guess that she was asleep – the alternatives, he didn't even _want_ to think of.  Slowly, he walked inside, seeing the pyro lay on a hospital bed, hooked up to a dispenser and with an IV line in her left arm which rested above the sheets.  And for the first time he saw that she'd lost weight.  That morning – or, he mused, by now it had to be Sunday, so the previous morning – he'd noticed she looked tired, but then he'd clearly not been paying enough attention, because she didn't just look tired, she looked _exhausted_.  Only two weeks prior, she'd been energetic and vibrant, and now she looked like she was dying.  Her eyes had dark circles around them, her left cheek was bruised from where he'd hit her – seeing the bruise physically hurt him, he found, biting back a heartfelt curse – and she looked even more fragile than ever before as her skin barely contrasted against the light blue of the sheets.  “...Oh, _merde...  putain..._ ”, Gabriel whispered, fully realizing that he'd been so focused on his own pain and wounded heart that he had been blind to the way Sam felt about everything.  A part of him had always known that she'd denied him for the sake of being able to heal herself – he remembered her even saying that he deserved someone wholesome, so her wanting to heal could've even meant that she had meant her 'no' as 'not yet' – but he'd been so used to getting whomever he wanted, so upset by the notion that their friendship was genuinely over, that he'd ignored that part of him in favor of the petty, vindictive larger part of him that screamed for satisfaction.

But not anymore, Gabriel swore to himself, taking a tentative step closer to the hospital bed.  Not any more, not if he'd possibly driven her to follow her brother's example and end it all because she saw no end to the pain anymore.  Not if he'd taken the angel that she was and ripped her wings off.

He glanced around and found a small writing pad and a pen laying on one of the desks: picking it up, he wrote everything he desperately wanted to say to her but didn't dare wake her up for.

_'Sammy, as I stand by your bedside, I feel like I deserve hell for all of this.  I don't know if ya really tried to kill yourself or not... but it doesn't matter.  I hurt you, all because you hurt me – but you had no other choice.  I did, and still I chose to hurt you.  And I hate myself now.  Instead of hating you for everything I did, I should've seen that it was all me.  Merde, Sammy, I don't wanna lose you, so please, if you really did try to commit suicide, promise me you won't try again.  If you didn't, then promise me all the same, because I sure as hell am not gonna survive that._

_J'ai si envie maintenant de t'embrasser mais j'ai peur que tu te réveilles et me frappe pour être ici.  J'veux te parler, dès que tu te sens mieux.  Tell Dell to tell Grant to tell me when and where.  I don't care who's present and how far apart you wanna sit from me.  I don't care if I gotta scream it halfway around the world.  I need to talk to you.  Merde, j'ai tout foutu de nouveau, j'le sais, mais je t'en prie, Sammy, don't just turn me away.  Like I said, I feel like I went from bein' just a sinner to being a real devil.  And not in a good way.  Je suis si, si, si désolé.  Ne me quitte pas.  Gabriel.'_ He reread his note three times before sighing and adding a quick little postscript at the bottom of the paper.

 _'PS we're still friends if you wanna be, all up to you, and this time I swear I mean every word of it, whatever you're still giving I am so taking'_ – he grinned as he realized the pun in his words but then instantly shook his head and simply placed the note underneath her left hand.

“...Je t'avoue, Sammy, if I _get_ a second chance, I ain't screwin' it up...”, he whispered – and as if she'd heard it, Sam sighed softly and mumbled something.

“Nmmm... c'r'mel...”  To anyone else, it would've been hilarious, or plain and not worthy of notice; but Gabriel had shared with her his love for the sweet, sticky substance in all its forms, and that made the word stand out to him like an omen of her goodwill towards him.  It was enough to lighten his mood again, and enough to occupy his thoughts-

-until he ran into a wall that wasn't supposed to be there, which turned out to be Yaroslav.  Instantly, Gabriel jumped back, biting back a curse.  The heavy was attached to Sam, he'd gathered from the way he'd treated her; if he had the feeling that Gabriel was in any way responsible, there was nothing that'd stop him from wiping the floor with the pyro, because even if Gabriel was a full head taller than the bulky Russian and just as strong, he hadn't ever mastered the art of hand-to-hand combat.  However, Yaroslav seemed to be surprised rather than angry.

“...Gavriel, vot you do here?”, he asked softly, motioning around him.

“I couldn't sleep, what with Sam-”  The heavy scowled for a second, and Gabriel once again felt afraid for his life, but then the other man sighed and nodded.

“...Little pyro is sleeping now.  She had... heart failure.  Two times she was dead.  Doktor Steinheim saved her, together with your doktor.  Is all good now.  Tomorrow morning, team will have talk.”

“...Please don't send her packin'...”, Gabriel said miserably, and the heavy chuckled, shaking his head – that surprised Gabriel.  How could Yaroslav laugh when Sam was still laying in the medbay?  How could he laugh if the Administrator could choose that employing her caused too much trouble and that they were better off ending their contract with her?  How could he laugh when _he felt like crying_?  Just as Gabriel was about to say that, Yaroslav spoke again, his words indicating why he'd chuckled in the first place.

“We will not talk about sending little pyro away!  She is part of team now!  ...We will talk about vot to do now.  Little Sam is weak, she will not fight well.  We will call Administrator, da, but not to dismiss little pyro.  We will call to tell Administrator little pyro is sick and cannot fight.  Company has no need to know.  ...But problems with Danti and little Sam need to be solved...”, he added, giving Gabriel a stern look that had the pyro nod with a heavy sigh.

“Je sais... I know.  I... left Sammy a note askin' her to please talk to me as soon as she's feelin' better.”

“Da, is good.”, Yaroslav said, motioning for the hallway.  “Now go – if others wake up, you have problems.  Archie vos very angry.”

“...As long as Sam isn't gonna hate me, I'll be able to bear anything.”, Gabriel admitted before running off to the end of the hallway, opening the window again and sliding out of it.  He thought of returning to his bed and sleeping, but decided against it, instead wandering to the spot on the edge of the battlegrounds he'd become reacquainted to as of late.  His purse with the matches and the lighter lay close at hand, but this time, as he gathered stray branches and pieces of blown-apart boards, his mind wasn't clouded by rage or sadness, or even hazy with alcohol.  This time his mind was clear.  This time, the fire wasn't an escape but a prayer: every swirl of smoke was a confession, every ember that danced upwards on the morning breeze, glowing like a golden star, was a plea, and every crackle of the wood was another reiteration of the same thought.

_'Marylise, chère mère... Si t'es là-haut, aide-moi à tout arranger de nouveau, aide-moi à regagner la faveur de Sam...'_

Slowly, carefully, Sam lifted her legs out of the hospital bed, letting them dangle over the edge as she pushed herself up.  Her body protested but she continued, gritting her teeth and using every ounce of strength she had left, switching to willpower when she felt lacking in endurance.  Next to her, doctor Steinheim carefully monitored her, nodding approvingly.

“Zhe saline solution did its work already... good, good... I am also glad to report zhat zhe urinalysis revealed-”

“You... wait, I didn't... pee in a cup...”, Sam stammered – she'd been so focused on getting up that she'd nearly missed the medic mentioning the results of a test she hadn't known about, but the medic airily waved his hand in between them.

“You didn't need to – zhere vos urine all over your clozhes last night.  Zhe analysis revealed zhat you had only _minimal_ traces of zhe tranquilizer and zhe alcohol in your system, so ve can safely assume all zhis vos an accident-”

“Like I said.”, Sam said softly, and the medic nodded.

“Yes, like you zaid, Zamantha – you underztand zhat ve couldn't believe you in zhe case you _had_ tried to kill yourzelf, oder nicht?  ...Ve are all glad you didn't.  Ah, zhat reminds me – Dell found your note last night-”

“Yes, I know, that's why I'm trying my hardest to get _out of this bed_...”, Sam said, mentally gathering her strength again to slowly slide out of the bed.  To her surprise, that went easily: apart from a little pain in her shoulders and her balance being a little off due to her light-headedness, she had no trouble standing.  Then, tentatively, she took a step forward, and it took only a few seconds after that until she was walking slowly across the medbay and back.  “...Dell said he wanted me present for the team meeting.  He also mentioned there'd be pancakes.”

“Dell... vhen your heart stopped zhe second time and Rudolf vos already reanimating you for one full minute, he carried in his dispenser to hook you up to it.  He vos very... _tenacious_.  Zhat probably saved you.”, Siegfried admitted, causing Sam to put a hand on the medic's shoulder and managing a weak but genuine smile.

“I owe my life to all of you – from Dell to you, to Rudolf, to Grant... all of you.  I couldn't wish for better friends than you.”

“Und herr Dantan?”, the medic asked shrewdly – Sam knew he had to have seen the note, or at least have heard her gently whisper his name and sigh, so she blushed as she nodded guiltily.

“Wouldn't want to trade him for the world.  Even if he hit me yesterday.”

“Zhat bruise vill heal, and if zhe wounds in your heart have already gone...”

“...Well, let's just say that I'm carefully-guardedly-optimistic...”, Sam said as she started walking to the dining room.  Her legs and arms hurt, and they felt like they had been wrapped tightly in bandages again, but she figured she could've been a whole lot worse if they had found her even a minute later.  Waking up in the medbay and being told that her heart had stopped _twice_ had given her new perspective; but it had been waking up to her friends and hearing their worried voices in the morning that had truly given her new hope and strength.  She had been wrong to think she was alone.  She had an entire team of men that wished her well, and she had one friend that was willing to risk hell twice over to get redeemed – because Gabriel's note had mentioned him standing by her side that night, which had to mean he'd _broken into the BLU side of the compound_.  Biting her lip, she corrected herself, because as soon as she'd see Gabriel, she'd do anything she could, say anything, agree to whatever was necessary to get the pyro to trust her with his heart again.  She'd dreamt of him again, of being with him without fear, and now that she knew how painful it was _not_ having him in her life, she felt like him hurting her would pale in comparison to the suffering she'd endured in the previous two weeks.

“Sam!”  Archie was the first to meet her – and he was also the one that gently put his arm around her shoulders and pushed her along inside the dining room, where the rest of the men already sat waiting for her, all looking equally worried and upset to see her in pain.  Dell put a plate with fresh pancakes in front of her, all cut in neat little pieces and covered with whipped cream and chocolate sauce.

“Eat 'er up now, Sam, li'l lady – doc Steinheim's orders.  Yeh're gittin' all the good food tuhday.  An' no givin' away yer portions no more.”, he added sternly when she meant to speak, causing her to meekly nod as she started putting the pieces of pancake away.  To her surprise, the chocolate sauce was freshly made instead of store-bought: it was more milky than actual chocolate, but it made the heavy, whole-grain flour pancakes more digestible.  In no time, the entire plate was empty and she quickly scooped up the last few stray specks of whipped cream, licking her lips.  “...Well, _darn,_ now ah'm wishin' doc Steinheim forced yeh t'eat like this a long time ago... yeh're lookin' a lot better now, Sam.”

“I feel a lot better, too.  I can't believe I ate all those pancakes!”, she admitted, feeling full and satisfied.  However, then, she looked at the engineer shyly and spoke about the matter at hand again: “...Uh, but food wasn't why I came here...”

“Ah, yeah, tha' note.  Sam, ah hope y'ain't mad at me, but ah let everyone read tha' there note an' there's somethin'-”  He meant to speak on, but evidently Yaroslav's patience had worn thin and the thick-set Russian spoke up loudly, cutting across the engineer's words.

“We keep little pyro in team!  Little Sam must get strong again, then she should solve problems with Danti – but not kvit, not leave!”

“...yeah, that was the gist of it.”, Jane said leniently as Dell looked at the heavy weapons expert angrily – the soldier rolled his eyes as he spoke, showing that he hadn't appreciated Yaroslav's quick interruption much either, but Sam was past caring: she'd gotten up from her chair and threw her arms around Yaroslav's bulky form, causing the man to laugh loudly and hug her in turn – and then, it seemed that _everyone_ wanted a hug from her, which she gladly gave.  Tavish and John patted her on the shoulder gently, and Dell even managed to spill a tear or two as he held her close like a father would hold his daughter on her sixteenth birthday – Archie, on the other hand, grinned from start to end, swinging her around gladly, and Arsène very respectfully kissed her on either cheek.  Siegfried smiled as she gave him a short hug, blushing just a little; Theo tried to get her to hug him a second time, but in the end he relented when Archie loudly muttered promises of blacking eyes and knocking out teeth interspersed with insults and insinuations about doing very improper things with the man's sniper rifle scope.  Seeing an argument in the making, Sam quickly spoke up again.

“...You guys, you're all the very best, and I wouldn't want to miss you for the life of me.  If you're worried I'll still resign, you don't have to worry anymore, okay?  You lot have a pyro for life!”

“Zhat sounds exzhactly like vhot ve needed!”, Siegfried said, smiling even as his voice became serious and his motions became once again professional and measured: “...But not zhese first few dayz, meine Freundin.  First, you must rezht, and regain zhe strengzh you lost.”

“An', uh, maybe yeh should have a word with Dante, too.  Ah got th'idea yew an' him got a lot tuh talk 'bout.”, Dell said, giving her a soft look that she answered with no hesitation.

“Yes, I definitely agree.”  He'd implied that he knew about Gabriel's note as well – either that, or he just happened to have said the exact right thing, she mused with a gentle smile – and the rest either snorted or looked confused.  “...But enough about me and Gabriel – I'm just happy it'll all work out.”

“Zhe fatigue goes away wizh rest, zhe weakness vizh plenty of good food and exercise... zhat fitness routine you do?  You vill be required to do zhat daily until you can join zhe battles again.  ...Vell, if ve all agree zhat Zamantha is going to ztay wizh us, zhen we haff to alert zhe Administrator and get you and herr Dantan held back from zhe battles-”, the medic said, and for the first time, Sam interrupted him with a shy blush.

“...Tell the Administrator that I'm willing to accept unpaid suspension from battle.  I was so _stupid,_ thinking I had to resign...”

“Ach, mein lieber Freundin, you vere not ztupid, you vere... misguided.”

“Yeah!”, Archie chimed in, patting Sam on the shoulder gently.  “Ya ain't done nothin' bad!  Ya were just... _dealin'_ with shit.”

“Badly dealing with it at that.”, Sam spoke drily, and Dell nodded gravely.

“Ah think it's safe tuh say y'ain't gotta lose pay over this – yeh lost enough already, fer long 'nough.  But from now on...”, he spoke, rising from his chair again and looking at her somewhat sternly, “...yew have t'promise yeh're gon' _talk_ to yer friends 'fore yeh decide tuh run away.  Not just leave 'em a note.”

“I solemnly swear that I'll speak to any one of you about my gloomy thoughts next time I ever happen to have them _well before_ I act upon them – I'll get that tattooed on my chest if need be-”

“Ah, lass, yeh nae got to worry 'boot it, we'll take yer word fer it!”, Tavish said loudly, grinning – he was surprisingly sober, which led Sam to believe that he'd been shocked by what had happened to her as well – and the group relaxed again as Siegfried headed to the medbay to call the Administrator.

“Uh, Sam, kin ah have a li'l private word with yeh 'bout yer note, too?”, Dell said, and Sam nodded, smiling and quickly promising Tavish and Archie that she'd only be a few minutes before heading out into the hallway with the Texan.  “...Look, Sam, pardner-”, the engineer started, trying his hardest to sound professional and failing miserably – Sam smiled at him and shook her head.

“Dell, please, you don't have to pretend anything for my sake.  Just say what you need to say and I'll be able to-”

“Sam, ah jus' wanted t'say to yeh that ah'm _honored_ tuh be yer friend.”, the engineer admitted, his words still a little too lofty, but then he grinned and added a much more relaxed explanation: “When ah read tha' there note, ah was thinkin' 'she's been through so much – lost 'er brother tuh suicide, got in a harsh situation with 'er parents, nearly got killed, had t'move halfway 'cross the world, found a friend an' then got intuh trouble with 'im – where's she keep gittin' the strength?'.  An' ah wanted t'ask yew w-what it was that kept yeh goin' even when yeh fainted tha' one day.  What kept yeh believin' yew an' Gabriel could still _talk_.”

“...I didn't really know what I had to hold on to until today.  This morning, when I heard all of you, I remembered that there were a lot of little things I kept reaching for.  Like you and the way you're always there for me.  Like Archie and the way he kept raging at Gabriel for hitting me yesterday.  Like Tavish' pats on the back whenever I helped him take point, or Theo's slightly lewd but mostly sincere grins.  ...And as for Gabriel, it was the same there.  Sometimes he seemed to _falter_ just a little before sending me to respawn.  Sometimes his heart didn't seem to be into it, and that reminded me that I got a peek into that heart... that wonderful, wonderful heart...”, she sighed, and Dell nodded.

“Tha' brings me t'mah next question – Sam, yeh said in yer note 'It's heartbreaking to know that you threw away the best thing that ever happened in your life just because you were afraid of it' – y'weren't talkin' about just the _job_ there, were yeh?”

“You're good at reading between the lines, Dell.”, Sam said, nodding softly, and the engineer smiled ruefully.

“Yew hopin' there'll be a second chance?”

“Hope's all we have in life – I was reminded of that in the last few weeks.  Hope, and love, and our own hearts.  I thought I was weak because I had to rely on others... but it turns out that I was actually stronger than I thought.”  She turned to Dell and smiled warmly at him.  “Dell, you're... I have to admit it, I've got a soft spot for you.  You remind me of my father, just as down-to-earth and straightforward.  And if _he_ were standing here, I'd tell him that I'll do all I can to get things back to the way they were before.  I'm going to train extra hard in this next week – not excessively, but intensively, pushing myself as hard as I can take without more stupid accidents happening – and I'm going to be cooking for you guys after battle... and I'm going to have a conversation with Gabriel about how we go from here – because he's probably going to be having a _field day_ when he gets my note.”

“Should we be expectin' trouble?”, Dell said, and Sam allowed herself a chuckle and a nice bout of optimism, in stark contrast to her gloom of the past weeks.

“That entirely depends on your definition of 'trouble', but let's say 'yes' just to be on the safe side.  I know Gabriel, he'll find new and creative ways to stir up this base.”

“With'cha or without'cha.”, Dell admitted, winking and patting her on the arm.  “Sam, li'l lady... yeh head back in there – talk to 'em, _enjoy_ yer Sunday.  Everythin''s gon' work out again.”  As Sam nodded and headed back into the dining room, instantly getting absorbed into the conversation again, it was impossible to think otherwise – and she found herself eagerly agreeing with the engineer and following his advice.

 

“...Herr Dantan?”  The medic calling out for him didn't cause Gabriel to look up, though the next word out of the man's mouth did.  “Gabriel, bitte, zpeak to me.”

“...I heard ya, I heard ya...”, he said distractedly, his thoughts only half focused on the conversation with doctor Hartmann.  “Sam ain't battlin' so she can recover, I'm held back too, no goin' between bases or I'll make things worse... know the drill...”

“You are taking zhis remarkably vell, I must zay.”, the doctor mused, and Gabriel sighed, folding the note again and fully devoting his attention to the medic as it seemed the man wouldn't give him any peace until they'd properly discussed the situation.

“Yeah, well, what's there to take badly?  Sam's alive, she ain't fired, she didn't try to off herself, an' she promised to talk to me over here as soon as she's A-OK again, with Dell an' Grant present.  Oh, and Archie can't kill me for hittin' Sam because I'm held back from battle.  Definite plus there.  I fuckin' _hate_ that twitchy Boston fuck-up an' his baseball bat, he's too fuckin' _good_ with it.”

“Ztill zhinking of zhe broken jaw he gave you on his first day in zhe battles?”, the doctor asked, evidently in high spirits – normally he had a very low tolerance for him, Gabriel mused, but now he kept on talking to him.  It was hard for him not to chuckle and return the favor, though – not able to do anything, he felt bored and had been busying himself with re-reading Sam's tearstained note until he knew the entire contents of it by heart and could retrace every loop of her curvy handwriting with his eyes closed.

“Oui, still thinkin' of the broken jaw and the teeth I swallowed.  Regrowing _that_ in respawn _hurt like a bitch_.  Anyway, doctor, don't you have to go back to battle?”, he tried, and the doctor shook his head.

“Not vhile Ziegfried ist still examining Zamantha over on zhe BLU side, und zhat vill still take anozher  quarter of an hour.  ...Ich will gar nicht wissen, was Fräulein Tennant schrieb in dem Brief, aber-”  Gabriel rolled his eyes and snorted, though he did so with surprisingly little of his usual temper when the doctor was concerned.  The mention of Sam's note had his spirits soaring, making anything feel bearable.

“Doc, if this is you tryin' to be subtle, you are failin' so hard – but heh, that's okay.  Well, uh, I can tell you what she wrote – that she hopes I'll be fine, that she hopes the urge goes away again, that she doesn't want me to turn into another Lander... and she quoted some lyrics from my favorite song – but I can't tell ya what it _means_ to me.  That's... too personal.”  For a second, it looked like the medic was going to question him further, but then he sighed and nodded.

“...Ach, I zuppoze, if she haz asked to meet you at zhe end of zhis week, zhen she vill really vant to zee you and have zhe bozh of you make amendz for all of vhot has happened...  Gabriel, I haff to go now – behave-”

“Yeah, like I'd misbehave right now...”, the pyro said, rolling his eyes and turning back to his mountain of carrots that he'd been pretending to peel ever since that morning.

“-und perhaps _peel_ zhose carrots inztead of shtaring at zhem – vhe vill be hungry.”, the medic added mildly as he walked off, causing Gabriel to chuckle and take the note back as soon as the man's footsteps had died away.  It was already a little crumpled from him re-opening and re-folding it, but he liked to imagine he could feel Sam's fingertips if he ran his own over the paper.  And the tearstains caused his heart to hurt.  Truthfully, he mused, he held on to the scrap of paper as tightly as he did because he couldn't hold onto Sam – not just yet, anyway.

He re-read the last few lines and sighed.  She had looked up the lyrics to 'Coeur de Caramel' as it was sung by Lalise Saint-Yves, which were the same lyrics as the revamped version he'd first grown up with, 'Chantelle'; and out of all the verses, she had listed those last two lines, where the singer confessed their undying love for Chantelle, the girl with the smile sweeter than caramel.  But had she known what the song meant to him?  And if so, then _how_ had she known?  Even now, he found himself hearing the voice of the singer, smooth and light, singing those lines – _'t'as mon 'mour éternelle... mon coeur de caramel...' –_ and he grinned as he considered the possibility that Sam would allow him to hold her again.  His body seemed to yearn for the feel of hers.

“...Merde, c'sera une semaine longue comme ci...”, he admitted, folding the note deliberately, the paper feeling almost abrasive under his fingertips all of a sudden.  Paper felt nothing like her fingertips, he corrected his earlier thought: her fingertips were _soft_ and _sure_ and they knew _exactly where and how to wander..._ Repressing a groan as the yearning intensified tenfold and his mind conjured up some images to go along with the thought of Sam's hands on his bare skin – like the way she'd looked when they'd made love that second time, her eyes dark and her gaze one of pure bliss – he put the note away and tried his hardest to shelve his thoughts.  “Merde, que la semaine va durer _une éternité_ comme ci... ressaisis-toi de nouveau, Dantan, ne pense plus à cette nuit ou tu n'arriverai jamais à peler ces carottes...”  It took him another minute of willing his brain back to cooperation before he felt like he was focused enough on the task at hand to handle the sharp paring knife, but even then, he found his hands occasionally move back to his pocket to feel the outline of the note in there, like a kind of reassurance.  Like a kind of talisman.


	16. Hit the ground running with the flames at my feet

“...You've gotta... _truuuuuust_ somebodyyyyy... you've gotta... freeeeeeee your mind and follow meeeeeee...”, Sam sang along with the tune on the television as she sat in the dining room, working on preparing dinner for herself and her eight teammates.  She'd just finished cleaning and cutting up five stalks of broccoli and covering eight large cuts of salmon with a crust of breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese and various herbs, and to reward herself for her hard work, she'd turned on the television and changed the channel to a non-stop music video channel that somehow turned out to play one of her favourite songs just as she landed on it.  “Let me tell you what to do what to do what to do – _oooooohh..._   Baaaaaaaby let me love you love you love you love youuuuu...”

“Zamantha, are you here?”, the medic's voice preceded him into the living room, causing Sam to blush and switch the television off again before calling out in reply.

“Yeah, I'm in here, Siegfried!”  The medic entered, still in his full battle gear, the medpack on his back still humming and his syringe gun clinking ominously at his belt.  “...It's time for my medical check already?”, she asked, and he rolled his eyes.

“Vell, no – zhe battle haz been stopped for zhe day-”, he admitted, and Sam blinked.

“I... haven't seen or heard anything...  Normally the horn sounds-”

“Ah, yes, vell, not for zhis reason.  Zhe respawn machine malfunctioned – nozhink bad, but suddenly ve had two scouts.  Herr Jamison vos not amuzed by his short career as a member of zhe BLU team-”, he started, halting when Sam chuckled.

“Billy, on our side?”

“Yes, but zhen he took off his uniform – zhere were a few Flüche involved as vell, most of zhem directed to zhe company and a few to our own herr Jezzup and herr Doe as zhey vere laughing at him – and Dell called zhe Administrator to get zhe battles ztopped and zhe respawn machine checked.  Zhey are sending a maintenance team from Chicago now, denke ich.  So no more battle for zhe day!”

“Well, if you guys want an early dinner, you are in luck... I've just finished prepping the fish and the broccoli- oh, hell, wait...”, she said as her cellphone rang: doctor Steinheim smiled and nodded.

“Zamantha, meine Freundin, I should change out of zhese clozhes – I vill let zhe ozhers know dinner vill be in one hour, ja?”  She waved him off quickly, already answering the call.

“...Sam.”

 _“Oh my god, Samantha, are you okay?  I got a call from your Administrator telling me you'd had an 'accident' with tranquilizers and then I got your messages and-”_   It was Damien, understandably distraught, and she bit her lip, suddenly feeling self-conscious.  When she'd felt bad in the two weeks that had passed since she and Gabriel had spent the night together, she'd sent her brother messages, which had gotten increasingly gloomy until she'd sent one that Saturday morning that had just read ' _Gabriel is coming over, but I can't do this.  Dami I'm not strong enough :'(_ ' – so she couldn't blame her brother for worrying.  And since she'd been busy working to keep up her strict schedule, she hadn't found the time to call him yet to offer an explanation for the messages.  But she hadn't figured on the Administrator contacting him about her 'accident' – in hindsight, that felt like a humongous oversight, which explained her slightly guilty tone as she answered him.

“Damien!  Oh my god, yes, I'm fine, I'm fine now.  I... oh my god... where to begin...”

 _“Start with the most important part – you tried to kill yourself?!”_ He sounded utterly devastated by the thought alone, and that was enough to once again imprint firmly upon her that he – that _they –_ had already lost a sibling to suicide.  As always, at the thought of her youngest brother, she bit her lip to hold back the sadness, even though it bled through liberally in her voice.

“N-no, Damien, I swear I didn't try to kill myself, I... it really was an _accident_ , I must've had an adverse reaction to the tranquilizers I got!  I wouldn't... I would _never_!  You know that!”  He took a shaky breath and then sighed.

_“...That's just the thing, Sammy, I don't know for sure if you would or wouldn't.  I mean, you've been through a lot – with mum and dad, with Michael, with your health, with your job – and you... you've always pretended to be so strong but you have a history of excess when you're distraught or hurt on the inside-”_

“If you're referring to the time when I drunk-dialled you back in my internship in Lyon, that was _once,_ hardly a habit.”, she interrupted calmly, shaking her head.  “I am not _Gabriel_ , I don't drink a bottle of vanilla gin per day.”

 _“No, you're more moderate than that... but you've told me he's had his addictions for nearly six years, and I can hardly imagine he started with one bottle per day and then stuck to that number.  ...Speaking of this Gabriel of yours-”_ , Damien started, his voice growing dangerously edged, and Sam sighed.

“...We slept together, and it... well, I'll spare you the details, but let's say it was a more _profound_ experience than I bargained for.  And I panicked afterwards.  The next morning-”

 _“The next morning?  You mean you actually_ slept _together, too?  ...Doesn't sound like a one-night stand to me, Sam.”_ , Damien said, and for the first time Sam smiled again.

“Oh, _shut up_ , you big _ostrich_.  ...Anyway, so I panicked and I... the next morning, I denied him, and I went as far as to say we might not be able to be friends anymore, and he took it _completely_ the bad way and became angry at me – to the point where he started up all his old vices again and blamed _me_ for the relapse.”

 _“The pyromania too?”_ , Damien asked, causing Sam to sigh.

“...First and foremost.  He also... well, I had a little talk with Grant the other day, over the telephone, and he told me that Gabriel must've been with half of his team.  Including Billy, his former partner.”  Suddenly, Sam felt a moment of doubt concerning her talk to Gabriel, which would be the next morning.  Would Gabriel have gotten back together with Billy again in the meantime?  If so, the scout could perhaps-

 _“...Sam?  I think there's something that you're not telling me right now.  You're beat up over Gabriel's anger because he slept around, aren't you?”_ , Damien asked, and Sam bit her lip.  The simple answer would be 'yes', but 'simple' was no longer the term to use on the convoluted relationship she and Gabriel had.  On the other hand, answering 'no' would be a lie.

“...Damien, I denied him because I was afraid of him hurting me, and after that all we both did was hurt.  So I... hurt myself, and... he hurt me too, with the pyromania-”

 _“And with the sleeping around, too, Sam – you don't have to be honest to me and admit that you love this Gabriel of yours, but please be honest to_ yourself _, okay?”_ , Damien said, causing her to take a deep breath and nod.

“...Yes, it hurt hearing that he's been with four different men in a week.  And y-yes, the thought of him now being back into a committed relationship with Billy... it hurts.  But if that's the case... well, then we'll be friends, me and him.  He deserves a steady relationship with someone that'll make him better.”  Before her brother could respond to her tone of voice, she quickly added: “But we'll see about that tomorrow – him and me, we're _long overdue_ to talk.  In the meantime, I... I neglected myself a little in the last two weeks, to the point where I fainted a couple of times in and out of battle...”  She allowed her voice to trail off because she expected Damien to be shocked to hear it, but the expected interruption never came and she continued: “...and that was really why I was in such a bad way last Saturday.  Gabriel came over to talk, because _I_ had asked him to, but he _exploded_ and said that he h-hated me, that I caused his pyrom-mania to flare up again... and then, he... you have to understand, he was angry – but he hit me.  I cried a lot, and doctor Steinheim, the medic, he gave me a tranquilizer and a sedative and... but when I woke up, I was distraught and I... you know, last January, what happened.”

 _“Yes, you... oh, Sam...”_ , he said when he realized what she implied, and she sighed sadly.

“...I wrote a letter to the engineer where I confessed that I was going to go away, back to you – and that I'd quit and go back to England.  I was distraught, beside myself with grief for what I had made the situation into, and... and I also wrote a note to Gabriel in which I confessed to him that I regretted having pushed him away out of fear and that... I still care for him.  After that, I took another tranquilizer and I washed it down with a bottle of lemonade Archie had standing on his desk – o-only it wasn't lemonade, it was a ready-made cocktail mix.  I put Gabriel's letter in the mailbox and intended to walk off, but the alcohol and the tranquilizer, combined with my general weakness and fatigue, gave me a cardiac crisis and I collapsed in the parking lot, where doctor Steinheim found me.”

 _“...Your doctor told your Administrator that you'd been going to join them in town after waking up.  You owe him a big thanks and an even bigger bunch of flowers.  ...Oh, Sam, when are you going to learn that running away from a problem is_ not _a viable solution...  So they found you and they brought you back.  Apparently-”_

“I flatlined twice, doctor Steinheim told me, and I recovered like a charm when the rest of the team arrived and Dell hooked me up to his dispenser when they couldn't resuscitate me instantly.  I owe him a much bigger thanks – and he knows it.”  Placing a hand over her heart, Sam thought back on the engineer's confession earlier that week.  “...Damien, when you come over here for the visitor's day, I'll introduce you to all of them, starting with Gabriel and then on to Dell.  They're all wonderful men in their own ways – well, save for Theo and Chris, perhaps, they're the snipers and they're... ugh.”

 _“...I take it from your tone that you're doing fine again now.  Keep it that way, Sammy, you hear?”_ , her brother said sternly, and she nodded before voicing her assurance as well.

“Believe me, I will.  I've rested this week – strict diet, exercise and sleep regimen, thanks to doctor Steinheim – and I'm fighting fit again.  And tomorrow, I'll get to talk with Gabriel quietly, with both of our teams' engineers there to keep an eye on things – and things will work out again.  ...Anyway, I'll leave you now, if you're now properly, uh, reassured that I'm doing fine.  I still have to cook for these misfits.”

 _“I'm glad to hear you're okay again – just... next time_ call _me instead of sending messages, okay?  Don't give me such a fright after a long flight back home.  And_ take care of yourself – _if I have to come back to that base of yours to drag you home with me, I will.  ...Goodnight, Sammy.”_

“Goodnight, Dami.  Love you.”, she added at the end, smiling when her brother reiterated the words before ending the call.  Then, after allowing herself a few seconds to just stand and smile, she turned back to the matter at hand and started moving her prepared dinner ingredients to the kitchen to cook and bake them.

 

“...Dante, son, sit down, she ain't due here for 'nother minute or five-”, Grant said emphatically, but Gabriel didn't want to listen.  If he sat down, he'd become even _more_ restless than he already felt.  His insides felt like they were squirming with life, teeming with millions of tiny creepy-crawly bugs that all seemed to be tickling his guts.  If Grant weren't present, he'd drown the sensation in alcohol – or desperately try to, at least, since he knew that alcohol wouldn't make it go away.

It all came down to Sam and him.  Sam's note, his note; Sam's grief, his grief.  She'd intended to run away and quit, letting down her team, her _friends_ , because he'd given her no other option; he'd run away into his habits, every single sinful one of them, because she'd denied him the one other option that was _worth something_.  Would it be awkward, seeing her again?  Would she run up to him and embrace him, perhaps even kiss him?  Would they sleep together again that night – and if they did, would it be the last time, or just the first?  Would they end up lovers again, just friends, or drift apart and become strangers?  He knew what _he_ wanted, and he was pretty sure about what _she_ wanted, but the possibility that he was wrong hurt him.

Almost naturally, he reached into his pocket and let the tips of his fingers skim the folded note, its presence reassuring him.  Sam had written those two lines for a reason – she cared for him, maybe even loved him as deeply as he loved her.  He shouldn't despair, but he couldn't help it.

“...Ah merde...”, he softly muttered, and Grant meant to say something to reassure him, he was sure, but then Grant's cellphone beeped and the engineer walked out of the dining room into the hallway.  Instantly, Gabriel knew that that had to mean Dell and Sam had arrived, and for thirty long, suspenseful seconds, the creepy-crawlies in his stomach seemed to multiply exponentially and expand into his heart and lungs as well... and then, Dell entered, followed by Sam, and Gabriel's insides settled down again.  Sam looked good – not yet as radiant as she had looked that one night, where she'd seemed to glow with energy and promise, but already getting most of her luster back.  She looked a lot healthier – her cheeks were rosy again, her eyes no longer dull, and her hair shone softly – plus she stood a lot straighter and looked at him shyly but hopefully.

“Gabriel.”  It was just his name, but the way she said it – tentatively, slightly fearfully, but also _so warmly he could've unthawed the North Pole with it –_ had his body move on autopilot and close the distance.  However, just a little before he would hug her, he restrained himself again and just smiled a little ruefully.

“Sam... t'as aucune idée... you don't know how _great,_ how _wonderful_ it is-”

“Likewise.”, she admitted, interrupting his slightly awkward flow of words as he grasped around for a way to say that he was overjoyed without actually using the word 'overjoyed'.  “...I got your note.”, she said, producing the small piece of paper that Gabriel had written his thoughts onto that night in the medbay – it looked pristine as opposed to his, but the way she held it showed that it hadn't left her side at all in the past days, which made the pyro's heart leap up.

“I got yours too.”, he admitted, patting his pocket, and then he pulled her gently along to the sofas of the living room – he ignored Grant and Dell's presence by now, and she seemed not to pay the engineers any heed anymore either – motioning for her to sit down in the biggest one before sitting down in the other sofa, not trusting himself with sitting next to her just yet.  First they needed to talk, he knew, and though he trusted his mind not to wander, he couldn't say the same for his hands, because just the feel of her shoulder under his fingertips, despite the layer of cloth between her skin and his, had his body itch with yearning, a yearning he'd only experienced one night but that yet was already as familiar to him as his heartbeat was.  “...So we need to talk about...”

“About us being...”, she started, biting her lip as she contemplated her next words.  When she spoke up, however, she conspicuously left the precise descriptor unspoken, as if she was unsure still.  “...Gabriel, I want us to at least be friends.  And to be able to be friends again, I think we need to speak openly about what we did to each other.  Everything we felt in the past three weeks, everything we held against each other – even if it isn't true... we need to be honest, and open, and... and _we need to trust each other again._ ”

“I'll trust you with my life, Samantha.”, he admitted, contemplating his words before speaking: “...That night was... heaven.  I thought about it every single fuckin' day since.  There were times I hated you for turnin' me away after, but most of the times I loved you and I was fuckin' helpless – you weren't gonna let me be with you again so I... so I worried.  And I worried.  And then, one night, I... tried to get rid of my worries.”

“And you started a fire.”, she said, nodding and looking away – the gesture could've meant that she felt sorry for him, but Gabriel knew her better than that.  Grabbing her hand and gently squeezing it, he shook his head.

“It was due to you, yeah, but you didn't hand me that lighter, you didn't stack the goddamn wood... it ain't your fault I'm weak.  Anyway, it worked – _once_.  After that, no matter how much I felt light when the fire was goin', as soon as it was out... guess one itch topped the other.”, he admitted, wanting to spare Grant a little – after all, neither engineer needed to know just how deep his need for Sam ran...  Sam gave him a look of surprise, which prompted him to continue: “...After that, I tried the other things, too – drank all of my liquor, didn't get shit outta it, tried sleepin' around again, didn't get shit outta it.  Billy...”

“Gabriel, you went back to him, a-and that's okay...”, she admitted, and Gabriel, for the first time, raised his voice due to the sudden spurt of anger it gave him; his anger wasn't directed at his fellow pyro, however, but at himself.

“No, it ain't okay!  I _used_ Billy, and it doesn't even matter if he gladly let me use him, I'm such a fuckin' asshole for doin' it with him.  He was there, he was willin' – the others, just the same.  But like I said, I didn't get a fuckin' thing out of it all.  I still had this big, Sam-shaped _hole_ in my heart.  And then you wanted to talk, but I... instead of seein' that I had to talk things through with you, I blamed you for the feelin' of powerlessness I got and... and I lashed out, and I'm _so fuckin' sorry, Sammy_ -”, he started – and Sam nearly leapt into his arms at that, hugging him tightly.

“Gabriel, it's okay, the bruise is gone and I understand, I really, really understand... it hurt, yeah, but...  ...Wait, maybe it'll be easier if I tell my side first.”, she said, slowly letting him go and walking back to her spot on the couch, causing Gabriel to sigh sadly but nod.  “...Just like it was for you, Gabriel, it was for me.  That night... I haven't ever experienced something so... _earth-moving_ with anyone else.  It was like you'd entered my heart with a battering ram.  And that... I got frightened, like I told you then.  You'd gotten so deep, I was afraid that you'd damage me, knowingly or not-”

“Aw, Sam...”, he said, meaning to say that he'd rather die than hurt her, but she seemed to guess his thoughts as she voiced her answer in the next breath.

“...I knew that hurting me would undo you, Gabriel, even if you hadn't meant to do it, so... I was worried about what it'd do to you, too.  And I did the only thing I knew and I... ran from it.  I hurt you badly, I know that – but back then, I really thought that it'd save us more hurt in the long run.  I was pretty wrong about that, huh?”, she said ruefully, prompting a sigh from Gabriel.  “You became angry, and you had every right to be – but I was so afraid that I had a panic attack when I explained to Archie what had happened.  Siegfried prescribed me some tranquilizers that I had to take ever since then.  And that Saturday... I genuinely felt worried about you.  When Grant said you'd turned back to your pyromania, my heart...  It was as if Chris had shot me right here.”, she said, pointing to her stomach.  “My heart stopped for a second or two.  I didn't understand how badly I'd hurt you until then.  And after that... I was convinced you hated me.  I was convinced that we couldn't ever talk again, let alone be in each other's presence, without you wanting to hurt me, and I... became preoccupied.  I couldn't stop thinking about how wrong the situation had turned out to be – I skipped meals, I couldn't sleep because I had nightmares about you coming to kill me for hurting you-”

“And ya fainted.”, Gabriel said, remembering the occasion.  Sam nodded.

“...You trying to kill me even when you knew I was down-”

“Yeah, about that... I owe you another apology, Sam, I _didn't know you could get badly damaged_ , j'te jure.”, Gabriel quickly interrupted, his hands feeling as if they were on fire and his face burning in much the same way.  “Merde, j'ai jamais voulu...”

“Nothing happened, thanks to Dell, so I believe the both of us owe him a big thanks.”, Sam said – the engineer made to tip his hat until he remembered he didn't wear one and he lowered his hand again, causing Sam to smile softly as she continued: “...Anyway, the others became worried about me.  Only Siegfried, Archie, Dell and Yaroslav knew that we... well, the others thought we'd had any regular old argument.  But then, Saturday...  I was distraught – I'd eaten a little better but I still hadn't slept much, so I was burning my candle not just on both ends, but on _all sides_... and after you had your outburst and stomped off, I... had another anxiety attack and Siegfried sedated me.  I slept most of the day.  That evening, I pretended to be asleep so I could quietly slip away.  I packed some stuff, wrote Dell a note to say goodbye... and then I thought of you, and of the fact that maybe you'd still care, and I wrote you a note too.  A _heartfelt and completely honest_ note.”, she said emphatically, causing the edge of the note to almost feel warm to the touch to Gabriel all of a sudden.  The question slipped past his guard before he could stop himself – his heart burned with uncertainty all of a sudden, a burning that she had to douse right away or he'd never find any rest anymore.

“So the quote you used?”

“...I know what the song means to you, and I know what those words translate to, Dantan – yes, consider them my own confession to you.”, she admitted, not looking at him as she spoke but her hands nervously picking little bits of lint off the couch, and Gabriel squeezed his hands to fists.

“Je t'étreindrai dès que je peux.  Dès que j't'ai tout à moi.”, he said, and she blushed a little deeper than she already did, causing Grant to raise an eyebrow and Dell to look more than a little embarrassed.  “...Well, the same applies to my note.  ...Grant, Dell, uh, you two gotta know that... that Saturday, when Sammy...  Well, everyone thought she'd tried to off herself, and I... I was _fucked up_.  Sammy... after I hit ya, I was lettin' the anger burn out when I overheard Grant and Dell an' doc Steinheim talkin', saying that they maybe had to dismiss you, an'... and the truth finally dawned.  I hadn't lost you but I was losing you, and I _didn't wanna fuckin' lose you_.  So I did the first thing that came to mind when I worried and I drank the last of my bottles of liquor – and, unsurprisingly, it didn't do jack shit.  I was sober when we went to the bar, drank there but it did fuckin' _nothing_ , didn't talk to anyone, an' I only joined the poker game when Billy wouldn't stop fuckin' yappin' about how upset Archie was and how weird it was that you were upset... and then Dell got the news, called your team away, and Grant told the rest of us what he'd overheard.  I thought you'd broken my heart, but it broke _then_ , Sammy.  I couldn't sleep that night.”

“Billy came to mah room 'cause yeh wouldn't go t'sleep, son.”, Grant admitted, and Gabriel nodded.

“J'sais.  ...But I had to see ya, Sammy, so I... climbed through the window an' in through the same window on the other side.  And when I saw ya lying there... well, you saw the note.  I meant every goddamn word in it.  Anything, Sammy.  My arms, my life, my heart, they're all open for ya.  Même si j'étais un tel connard... fuck, just thinkin' of what I did to you...”, he admitted, running one of his hands across his face only for Sam to gently place her hand on his.

“Gabriel, you didn't do that to me, _I_ did that to me.  ...Well, I think we can reach an agreement we can both live with...”, she said with a smile, and he nodded.  “Well, I... we both know how we feel, and I think the both of us know how the _other_ feels, as well...  Uh, Dell, Grant, I hate to ask this but-”

“Ah think ah understand.  Don't misbehave, y'all.”, Dell said, turning to Grant: “...Ah think ah c'n help yew with some'a them stress calculations while we give these two some privacy.”

“Gabriel, ah expect y'on yer best behavior!”, Grant said as he all but fled the room, Dell following in his wake and closing the door behind him.  As soon as they did, Sam walked over to sit next to Gabriel.

“...Gabriel, I've been nothing but honest, and I'll keep being honest.  I love you, yes, and I don't want anyone in my life but you, but... I'm still not sure whether us committing to each other is a good idea at this point.  Not just yet.”  Gabriel blinked.  It was more than he'd expected, even knowing that she'd basically told him she loved him in her note, but what did she mean when she said she thought committing to each other wouldn't be a good idea?

“...You mean we can't be together _yet_?”

“I mean that we need to be sure that we _can_ commit to each other before we _do_ commit to each other.  The last thing I want is to break either one of us.  ...So for now, let's be friends, and if we want to... because believe me, I do want-”

“T'es pas seule, Sammy.”, he admitted, his hands shaking.  She was close, closer than she'd been in too long, and the thought that he just had to turn a little to be able to kiss the breath and the worry away from her did a number on his mind.  However, in a display of staggering self-control, he managed to just look at her a little longingly.  “...Well, how about this, then?  We promise to each other that we'll be friends no matter what else happens, and we promise that if we want more out of this... we'll be honest right from the start.”

“Okay, that sounds fair.  I promise you that we'll be friends no matter what else happens.”  To emphasize her words, she grabbed his hands, gently running her thumbs over the scars on the backs of them and causing him to grin.  “...And, well, I do want a _little_ more than that.”, she admitted, and he nodded.

“You got it!  ...Uh, 's that mean I can kiss you?”, he asked, and she chuckled before pressing her lips to his, kissing him almost sweetly, something he gladly let her do.  When they parted, he found himself licking his lips in an attempt to get every last bit of her taste he could, after which he spoke up.  “...Can I take you out to dinner tonight?  Not that _dump_ the others eat at – I want a li'l cosy privacy-”

“-before you take me back to base for a little more-than-cosy privacy...”, she accurately guessed, causing him to blush deeply and flare up instantly.

“Yeah, well, ne soit pas étonnée, mes sentiments n'ont pas changé, j'ai pas arrêté a t'aimer, Sammy – et oui, j'te veux encore, plus qu'avant.  It ain't a crime-”

“Oh, but it is, it's such a crime that you only said it out loud now.”, she admitted, embracing him; he couldn't help himself and kissed her again, this time more passionately, and she eagerly kissed him back with just as much longing to the point where they only parted when Gabriel felt like he'd spontaneously combust unless he _breathed_ some fresh, cool air.  Looking at Sam, he could see her looking at him with outright desire in her eyes, and he resolved to make sure their dinner date would go _perfectly_ so they'd forget everything that had happened in the three weeks between their last night together and that moment.  “...Gabriel, I think... I think I should maybe head back to BLU side now.”, Sam spoke delicately, her tone betraying that her self-restraint was wavering just as much as his at that point, and he knew she was right but at the same time he pulled her just a little closer and kissed her just once more, the itch she provoked in his hands and his heart growing into an almost ravenous hunger in a matter of heartbeats.  Again, she kissed back eagerly, her lips pressed tightly against his own and her tongue tracing the edges of his own; after a few seconds, her hands moved to the back of his neck and his hair and he groaned into the kiss, and-

“...Uh, Sam, li-li'l lady?  We gotta go back now – there's other people tha' wanna use tha' livin' room tuhday.”  Dell's voice sounded from outside the dining room door, his slight blush apparent even without them seeing it, and Sam detached from Gabriel with a small huff of annoyance directed at the man that had interrupted their reconciliation – though her tone was pleasant as she answered.

“I know, I'm there.”  Turning to Gabriel, she kissed him on the cheek before whispering in his ear: “I'll see you later, come pick me up at five, okay?”

“...Okay.”, he whispered back, watching her walk back with pain in his heart that mingled with the anticipation he once again felt and the need she'd inspired in him effortlessly.  “... _Merde..._ Sam, parfois je doute que t'es une ange – tu m'allumes comme du bois de feu...”, he whispered, prompting Grant, who had walked back to him, to speak up from the doorway.

“Gabe, son, y'okay?”

“Yeah, yeah... just... think I'll _sit here_ a li'l while longer, Grant, mon ami...”

“Do ah even wan' ask?”, the engineer asked, his voice mirthful and teasing, and Gabriel chuckled softly.  In his mind, he was already rifling through his wardrobe for the perfect outfit, fully intent on making sure that Sam wouldn't take her eyes off him all night.

 

“... _Finally_ , Sam, I was gonna send a rescue party if ya stayed under tha shower any longer!”, Archie said loudly when the BLU pyro entered their room again, causing Sam to snort.  Sure, she'd spent a little longer than usual on her shower, and yes, maybe she _had_ lavished scented bodywash all over herself to make sure she'd smell like roses... but that was understandable considering the fact that Gabriel had asked her out to a genuine _date_ , with _dinner_ at an actual _restaurant_ in town.  “Now c'mon, dress quickly-”, the scout added, and Sam blushed slightly when she shook her head.

“I, uh, I'm not heading to town with the rest of you guys...”

“-so we'll be in time for... wait, whah?  Ya... ain't goin' ta eat dinnah with us?  ...Sam, ya ain't gonna do nothin' stupid, are ya?”, he asked suspiciously, and Sam found her blush deepening.

“...I'm, uh... going to have dinner with Gabriel.  Just the two of us.”

“No way...”, the scout said incredulously – and Sam found his disbelief to prompt her to _grin_ as she suddenly found the idea improbable as well.  Only a week ago, Gabriel had shouted at her; only a week ago, she'd been laying in bed feeling devastated – but now...  She nodded, still grinning, and the scout grinned as well, repeating his earlier statement in a soft tone of genuine happiness: “ _No way!_ So you an' the fiyahbug gonna have a take two, huh?  ...Well, guess I'm'a gonna have to spend tha night at Arsène an' Theo's room again – or Billy's, he'll be fuckin' lonely anyway... hehe... _have fun..._ ”, he said teasingly, causing Sam to genuinely blush beet red, hiding the fact by picking out her underwear with extra care.  It didn't take long for her, focused on her wardrobe as she was, to have picked out an outfit, and when she turned back to tell Archie to please leave the room for a second, she found him already quietly slipping out the door, closing it before evidently leaning against it, tapping his fingers softly against the wood as she got dressed.  She'd chosen an outfit that would have her fellow pyro's thoughts pleasantly occupied all evening but that wouldn't get her into too much trouble: a knee-length blue skirt, a cream sleeveless shirt with some embroidered flowers on the right side, and blue shoes with a small heel.  And – she blushed to consider the fact – lacy light blue underwear.  She did a twirl and giggled softly when the skirt flared around her legs before falling back around them in soft folds.  “...Ya ready?”, the scout asked, and Sam rolled her eyes, musing to herself that either the scout was a little forgetful or he was teasing her again.

“I'm still not going to town with you guys, Arch' – you can leave already-”, she started, but the scout interrupted.

“Hey, ya gotta have a guy's opinion 'bout whetha Gabe's gonna be able to _eat_ tanight with you sittin' opposite 'im lookin' drop-dead gorgeous, don'tcha?”

“...Huh... well, if you put it like that... okay, yes, I'm dressed.”  The door opened and Archie walked in, freezing in the doorway with his hand still on the handle: he stood there for a few seconds before nodding slowly, grinning shyly.

“...He ain't gonna be lookin' nowhere else, not unless he's a fuckin' idiot – _dammit_ , Sam, ya look... jus' _wow_ , sistah.”

“Mouth closed, Arch', otherwise I might have to consider moving in with Dell-”, she said teasingly, and the scout scoffed.

“Yeah, like ol' Engie wouldn't stare at ya – he maybe treats ya like his long-lost kid but ya _ain't his_ an' he's just a guy too.  Anyway, _have fun with Dante –_ promise me ya gonna misbehave?”

“I swear, Archie Jessup, _you_ are _insufferable_ and you're lucky you're like a brother to me.”, Sam said as the scout poked his tongue out, though he gave her a last look of mingled affection and lightest amusement, before walking off, leaving her to spray on some perfume and fail at trying to remain calm at the prospect of going on her date with her friend.  She felt anxious – not afraid but nervously energetic, like she had drunk Archie's entire stash of Bonk! in five minutes flat – and at the same time, she felt hopeful, and out of breath... and so many other sensations that came and went like flickering stars in a night's sky.  Just when she looked at the clock for what seemed like the millionth time, a knock sounded on the door of her room and she heard Siegfried's voice.

“Zamantha, you haff a vizitor vaitink at zhe door.”

“I'm there!”, she answered, her heart suddenly fluttering in her chest out of pure nerves – grabbing her purse and jacket, she hurried through the hallway, not minding Siegfried's look of surprise as she ran past him, and opened the door to see Gabriel stand there, dressed sharply in very becoming black pants and a deep red shirt that made him look absolutely stunning, looking at her with a broad grin, a single rose in his hands.

“Mademoiselle Samantha, mon ange, puis-je t'inviter à dîner?”, he asked suavely, extending his hand to her, and she smiled broadly as she nodded, gently taking hold of his hand and allowing him to pull her closer for a kiss on her cheek.

“Oh, it'd be my pleasure-”

“Ah, we'll share that pleasure.”, he said, and it sounded dirty enough to make her grin but at the same time it seemed sincerely chivalrous, and he offered her the rose with a wink.  “T'es plus belle qu'elle, mais j'dois t'offrir une fleur au moins.”  Then, leaning against her a little, he added: “...It's just a plastic flower, but I figured you'd like this better than a real one, since it won't wilt an' it suits ya.  Une rose pour une ange.”

“Une rose sans épines pour une ange sans ailes.”, she said with a smile – she barely expected Gabriel to respond, but he shook his head.

“T'as des ailes – des ailes de feu, ouais.  ...Un pyromane doit quand même rêver, non?”  She chuckled and nodded.

“Le pyromane et l'ange de feu... we make quite the pair, we do.  L'un en flammes et l'autre en admiration.”  Gabriel pulled her against himself, kissing her forehead gently before looking her over.

“Oh, believe me, I am worshippin' the ground you walk on, mon ange...  and that fire's more metaphorical than it is real.  Now come on, before I decide we can skip dinner altogether – which would be a shame because this restaurant is _fuckin' sweet_ -”  The swearword he casually interjected made Sam grin and fall back into an easy, albeit still nervous and hopeful, routine with her friend.

“Donc, emmène-moi, monsieur Dantan, je me confie à tes soins, mon cher.”

“Eh bien, ton char attend!”, he said, taking a familiar set of keys from his trouser pocket, admitting with a shy grin: “...This time, I asked Grant _properly_ , and he said as long as I don't misbehave in it with ya-”

“-at which point you said you couldn't make any promises, I'm sure.”, Sam said with a grin, rolling her eyes when Gabriel chuckled.

“Yeah, well, when it comes to you I'm just too fuckin' weak, Sammy – or you're just too fuckin' hot.  Either goes.”  He opened the door for her and closed it softly before hurrying over to the driver's side and driving off to town, taking a right turn a little before the street with the bar where the others were having dinner, and after another minute or two they arrived at the parking lot of a small restaurant that looked like it'd been pulled right from a storybook, where they were shown a small table in a quiet corner.  “...Uh, Sammy, do ya mind if I drink somethin' with my dinner?”, Gabriel asked, and Sam smiled his way.  It seemed like the silliest question, but this was _Gabriel –_ he asked because he didn't want her to feel uncomfortable, she knew, and that in itself made her heart flutter just a little more.

“I take it you don't mean wine-”

“Oh, j'prends du vin, j'veux pas dire quelque chose d'autre...”, he quickly said, winking at her.  “I should've said 'do you mind if I drink some wine with my dinner'.  It's just, I got a clean track record here, and over at the bar people _know_ I drink my liquor like it's water, but this is a classy place and you're a classy woman-”

“Wine is classy – and I'm just about as refined as you are, really, Gabriel.”, she admitted, bringing a genuine thankful smile to her fellow pyro's face as he started pointing out the various dishes the restaurant offered and telling her which ones he thought she'd like and why.  Whenever his hand brushed over hers, Sam felt like she soared above the ground, and whenever he looked into her eyes, she felt her body tingle both with anticipation for the remainder of their evening and the depth of their renewed relationship.

It wasn't surprising that, by the time their food arrived, she and Gabriel held hands and were deeply engrossed in discussing their favourite foods, in no way different from any of the couples that sat at the other tables, blending into the crowd with ease.

 

It was odd, Gabriel mused when he waved the waiter handing him his change off, how he both wanted time to crawl and fly at the same time.  They'd sat through three courses, each one more delicious than the next, sipping wine and enjoying the evening fully; but at the same time, Sam's hand had only left his when food had been on the table, and the looks they kept giving each other made his blood burn and freeze at the same time.  He could only thank every divine being he could think of for the fact that Sam had asked for the check when the waiter suggested they take a coffee, because he might have run out of the restaurant without paying what with how eager he was to get her back to base.

“...Oh, Gabriel, I cannot thank you enough, this was _lovely_.”, she said, smiling broadly.  Her cheeks were a little rosier and her eyes sparkled just that little bit more, he noticed, answering her smile.

“Ah, but an angel like you, Sammy... t'mérites le mieux du mieux que le monde offre...”

“And yet, here I am with you, huh?”, she said jokingly, nudging him gently with her elbow before linking her arm with his while they walked back to the car, leaning her head against his arm with a happy sigh.  “...I think I couldn't do any better than you, it's like you were tailor-made for me to hold onto.”

“I try.”, he said, leaning down to kiss the top of her head.  “Now, I've gotta ask just to make sure... do you still wanna go an' join the others?”  As he had hoped, she looked up at him in surprise and shook her head.

“No, the others are only going to be asking awkward questions and tease us about having gone on a date... and as much as I know we'll both be asked all of those questions in the morning anyway, I think we need to keep tonight for just you and me.”

“Just you and me.”, he replied, grinning madly.  It had both been tender and sensual, the way she'd said it – intimate in every sense of the word.  He agreed with her on both sentiments, he found: it wasn't just the case that he wanted to get them back to base as quickly as possible to finally have a _proper_ taste and feel of her again, but he also found himself thinking that the two of them were, just for one night, living in a happy cocoon of a world, where nothing mattered but the other person and their smile.  “...Ce sera honteux...”, he admitted softly, causing his co-pyro to look at him in surprise and drawing an explanation from him: “...T'es vraiment belle et douce comme une ange, et tout que je peux penser c'est... pas aussi beau et doux que toi...”

“Oh, Gabriel...”, she said with a soft chuckle, shaking her head and motioning for him to lean his head lower, upon which she whispered: “I'm pretty sure no angel is allowed to think what I'm thinking.”

“T'es mon _rêve_ , j'le jure.”, he said, walking just a little more briskly to the car and, as soon as they were driving, pushing the accelerator just a little more.  The woman made his heart beat out of sync with every look, so much so that he could swear that he had a heart condition.  Another look at Sam as she gently ran her fingertips over his hand on the steering wheel and he amended his previous thought: if he had a heart condition, it was one he'd gladly die of.  All in all, it was no surprise that, when they arrived at the base and found it still deserted, he pressed her against the wall as soon as the door was closed and kissed her deeply and needfully, running his hands over her back and to her hips, groaning in satisfaction.  How she managed to make his entire body feel like it was made just for hers to press against, he'd never understand, but he gladly fulfilled its purpose.

“Gabriel, we... need to head to my room first...”, Sam whispered, and he found himself nodding even though his hands didn't leave her body just yet and his lips pressed lightly just below her ear, causing her to hum happily.

“...There's no one here, it's okay – as long as we don't forget we're not supposed to undress here...”, he spoke softly, nuzzling her neck and happily pressing a few kisses along it that had Sam's breathing hitch for a second.  His body felt like it was on fire from being so close to her, and he knew she didn't have any illusions as to what he wanted – not the way they were pressed close together and the way he was aroused by the feeling of her – but he wanted to make it last more this time.  The previous time, the foremost thing on both of their minds was getting off, he knew that much – Sam had been deprived for months, and he'd only recently realized his love and his longing for her as more than just 'wanting the new toy to play with', so there was no shame in admitting it; but this time, it was more, and he wouldn't rush to her bed just yet, not when he could enjoy making her heartbeat noticeably faster by pressing his lips lightly to the side of her neck and her collarbone.

“... _Gabriel, please_ , we can't... ah, we can't stay here, we nnnneed to go – _mmmm –_ to my room...”, Sam stammered feebly, whimpering when he ran one of his hands back up from her behind, over her shirt and to her shoulder in an attempt to press her even closer.  “ _What're you doing to me_... Gabriel, mon amour...”  Her tone of voice said enough about how she was forgetting – or, at least, willing to forget – that they weren't supposed to do anything but kiss and maybe lightly fondle each other, and Gabriel found himself chuckling softly.

“Je crois que nous devons passer à l'action, hein?”

“Oh, _shut up_ , you... you just enjoy making me _beg_ for you, don't you?”, she said, though she said it with a lazy grin as she pulled on his hand, which led to him gladly being dragged along to her room.  The hallway hadn't seemed as long the previous time, he mused: but maybe that could be due to the fact that they'd not stopped every other door for another kiss that lasted so much longer than they wanted and so much shorter than they needed.  In the end, however, they managed to get to her door – as she unlocked it, he wrapped one arm around her lower chest and pressed against her, which made her falter for a second before opening the door and nearly launching herself inside, pulling him along.

“Verrouille la porte, mon ange, j'veux pas d'interruption.  I swear I'm gonna make you _lose it_ and I wanna be the only one to ever see that-”  Already, Sam was complying with his wish, leaving the key on the door before turning back to him and giving him a look that made his blood turn to fire in his veins again, and he realized that his earlier sentiment applied to her too.  She was dead set on making him fly with her, right up to paradise, a paradise she wanted to be and to remain _private_.

Next thing he knew, she was gently pushing him along to her bed, muttering that he should sit down; when he complied, she sat on his lap almost instantly, pulling him into a deep and almost _heart-stopping_ kiss with her hands tangled once again in his hair, and he pulled her right against himself.  It reminded him of their last night together, when he'd taken her in that exact position, but it also reminded him of how they'd sat at the restaurant and she kept looking at the table as if it was in the way, as if all she wanted and all she needed was to have this proximity again – and then, the tip of her tongue swirled around his and his mind blanked.  Somehow, he was aware, in the moments between kisses where they breathed, that she removed his shirt and that he pulled hers off her, but what was much more important was the feeling of her lacy underwear against his bare chest, or the half-moan she let out when his hand managed to get lost underneath her skirt and over the surprisingly uncovered skin of her behind.  Even the somewhat painful feeling of his erection beginning to strain against the confines of his underwear and pants was lost in the sensation of having her so close and so absolutely mind-blowingly _eager_ for him, for them.

Wordlessly, he managed to convey to her that they needed to lose more clothes, and she got off his lap: he meant to get up but to his surprise, she pushed him back down and unbuttoned his pants, pulling them down along with his underwear.

“Sammy... you... what're you...?”, he stammered as she crouched down next to his legs, but then all words and all breath fled him as she wrapped her lips around the tip of his member and very gently moved her head down, taking more of him in.  All he could do was lean back and try and let _her_ pace things instead of just taking advantage, though his muscles suddenly seemed to _burn_ with the need to thrust up into that welcoming warmth of her mouth.  “ _Ahh mon ange, mon aaaange..._ ”, he breathed out, closing his eyes – but then, after what seemed like only seconds, she pulled off him again: looking down, he noticed she'd untied his shoes and pulled his pants and underwear all the way off him, along with his socks, and that she'd taken off her own skirt so she stood in front of him in just her underwear.

“...I'll let you take care of the rest...”, she admitted, swooping back down to sit on his lap, her lacy underwear pressing all too enticingly against his erection that was now more comfortable at least – this time, Gabriel was the one to kiss her, undaunted and even spurred on by the taste of his precome on her tongue.  He didn't want to simply remove her underwear and take her just yet, he found, and with a grin, he let his hands once again wander to Sam's bottom, to the little lacy string she wore, running his fingertips very subtly along the edge of it and causing his fellow pyro to moan into their kiss.  After just one French kiss, she started kissing along his neck and to his shoulder, whispering in between that she needed him and that he was driving her crazy and so many other things that generally got lost in the haze his mind was already in.  Finally, he unclasped her bra – he thanked God for the fact that she seemed to not mind his helplessness because it took him a few tries, especially with her giving him a lovebite during the process – and then, he hooked his thumbs under the flimsy fabric of her string as he spoke.

“...Merde, j'te veux aussi...  Ah, Sammy... y-you gotta lay down.  Get this off first an'-”  Already, she rose from her spot on his lap, which ended him up removing that last item of hindering clothing from her, and then she lay down on the bed, looking up at him with such longing that he whispered a curse mingled with a prayer for strength because _how was he supposed to see her like that and not lose his mind?_ “...J'veux... Ah Sammy, I don't know how-”

“What do you want?”, she asked softly, kindly, and he smiled down at her: her tone was warm and yet still sensual, showing that she knew he was lost and that she wanted to _help_ him please her – a feat that was both arousing and maddeningly loveable, he found as his heart seemed to inflate like a balloon.

“Well, you goin' down on me made me think it's unfair that I ain't returned the favor just yet... but I've never, uh... I mean, I know how to please a _guy_ , but-”  Sam looked a little surprised by his admission that he didn't have much experience with women, but then she smiled and motioned for him to lay down as well; as soon as he did, she kissed him – still deeply and passionately, but somehow lighter and more reverently, as if she wanted to try and transmit the feeling in her heart to him through taste and the sensation of their tongues dancing.  When they detached, breathing heavily once again, he admitted: “...Sammy, j'veux te vraiment faire perdre toi-même mais j'sais pas comment le faire-”

“Gabriel, it's okay if you don't know... ah, just... just _explore_ , okay?  You'll figure out what feels right... j'en suis sûre...”, she whispered, giving him a look of clear and utter trust, and before Gabriel could think of voicing how that look made him feel – how her trust in him and her readiness to give herself to him made his heart feel like it would combust – he already found himself leaning over her, kissing down her neck, down to her breasts where he paused for a while, kissing the fading scars and the soft, warm skin of her nipples, and then on to her stomach where the scars of her skin grafts were the clearest.  “ _...Mmm, Gabriel, mon amour..._ ”, she whispered heatedly, and he kissed his way to her hip, kissing over her thigh as she settled her ankle over his shoulder – he felt great knowing that he was making her feel good, but he didn't want to just stop at 'good': he wanted her to feel _heaven_ , and the sudden rush of insecurity that hit him made him falter for just a moment.  In a testament to how in tune they were, she looked down at him, blushing deeply in the way only satisfaction could truly bring out in a person and smiling luxuriously, and muttered: “D-don't be afraid... it'll be amazing no matter how- _haaaaaahhhh yesssss..._ ”  As Gabriel tentatively kissed her swollen privates, marveling at how soft and utterly welcoming they felt to his lips, she gasped out, and that spurred him on more than anything to continue.  Her initial gasp turned into a sharp, loud moan when he tentatively licked along her labia, noticing how a rich, almost sweet taste assaulted his tongue – and how her folds opened to allow him more of her to taste and lavish with attention – and then, when he kept gently licking her and occasionally placing a kiss on the inside of her thighs, he was overjoyed to find that she tried to reach down and tangle her hands in his hair again to keep him in place, her breathing rapid and every other exhale combined with a gasp or moan or whisper of his name with such fire he could live forever without ever needing to light another fire.  And he loved every second of it.

Purely by chance, he kissed the point where her folds met, and was rewarded by one of her hands tangling into his hair at long last, instantly pressing him harder into her as she moaned loudly.  However, she let go almost immediately again, and when he looked up a little, he saw her shiver and look down at him shyly, which caused him to grin broadly.

“N'importe, mon ange, ce montre que ça t'a plu.  Besides, now I know how to make ya fuckin' _lose your head_ , Sammy.”, he admitted: not waiting for her to respond, he reapplied himself to that one particular spot that had gotten such a strong reaction from his lover, and quickly he found that even the lightest touch of his lips or his tongue got her to gasp and shiver in his hold, to the point where he was starting to consider getting her off without even taking her, just to see whether he could, but she pushed very gently at his head and he detached, slowly moving back up until he could kiss her.  “As-tu apprécié cela?”, he asked, nuzzling Sam's neck again and getting rewarded with a soft moan.

“ _Gaaabriel,_ get _on with iiit_...”

“Oh, with pleasure, mon ange...”, he said, reaching down to hook his arm under one of her legs before thrusting into her, impatient and at the same time mindful of her pleasure.  The loud moan she rewarded him with was more than enough to make sure he didn't falter even once: each next rapid, hard thrust had her moan again, or – which was even _more_ pleasurable to him, which he hadn't even thought possible – gasp out his name as if it was a prayer of thanks.  “...Haaah, _merde_ , t'es si... t'es trop cha-chaaaaude, c'est trop, j'veux _jaaaaamais_ te lâcher... j've- j'veux que ça dure – _ahh man –_ toute la nuit, je le jure...”, he admitted, stammering, leaning low over her, and she gasped loudly, biting her lip to hold back some very colorful expletives – _and still managing to curse through clenched teeth_ , he found, the mere fact that their lovemaking was _powerful_ enough to make her do so sending more heat through his body.  Despite how badly he wanted to last, so he could draw out the pleasure he shared with her as long as he could, the position they were in was slowly driving him up the wall, and he groaned as he realized that he couldn't make it last that way.  “...Oh, man... j'vais jamais durer si j'fais pas autre chose...  S-sammy... get up, I wanna do this a little different.”

“Okay, but _hurry_... I was s-so close, Gabriel...”  She got up from the bed, looking expectantly at him as he led the two of them to the wall, right next to the window overlooking the empty, dark grounds.

“Wrap one leg 'round my waist, mon ange... I'll lift ya-”  He put one hand against the wall and the other on her ass, lifting her slowly up to the point where she wrapped her other leg around his waist as well right at the moment when he pushed into her again, groaning loudly as he did so.  “ _Daaaamn... it's no fuckin' use_ , you feel like _paradise_ any way I try to have ya... oh merde, _merde, meeerde..._ ”  He couldn't achieve the hard, fast thrusts he'd gotten before, but the position they were in now was a lot closer and a lot more intimate by far, not to mention the fact that all that kept Sam from falling was his body – his hand on her behind, his body pressing her into the wall, and then his other hand under her arm pinning her even more securely in place as he rolled his hips right into her, gasping and trying to think of ways to stave off the inevitable, and failing spectacularly to get his mind _off_ the mindblowingly beautiful woman that was now moaning his name as her legs squeezed his waist in time with the slow but deep thrusts he _did_ manage.

“ _Gabrieeeelll... Ahh, mon amooooouuuur..._ I can't... oh, oh I can't, no, ahhh... n-nooo...”  Sam's words ended in something that almost sounded like a sob, and he could tell from the way she suddenly seemed to _grab hold_ of him that she had been even less successful at holding her orgasm at bay, but he gladly rode through the undulations of her inner muscles, grinning all the while.  “...Oh, Gabriel... c-can I...”

“Sure, I'll let ya down now.”, he said – however, as soon as she had her feet firmly on the floor again, Sam pulled him back to the bed and lay back down in it.  “Sammy-”, he started, finding her pulling him down and kissing his words right from his lips and from his mind.  And as soon as they parted again, she moved her lips to her ear and whispered to him.

“ _Don't hold back, Gabriel, we both want it rough and pure, don't hold back anything_.”  He couldn't say no to her, not when she offered him everything on a silver platter – she'd said 'rough', which meant her body, and she'd said 'pure', which meant her heart and soul.  So instead of holding back, he gave her everything in return: he certainly was rough when he hooked his arm under her leg again and vehemently took her in exactly the way that had them both on the edge in a matter of heartbeats; and it certainly was pure, he found, when he looked at her in the split second between racing to his release and the climactic freefall and saw the dawning of a second peak in her gaze together with the plethora of emotion their night together brought out in her now.  In fact, he mused as he let her leg go so she could settle more comfortably and embrace him as he fell to the side, it was the perfect metaphor for the brittle, careful but extremely passionate relationship they'd begun right then and there.  Rough and pure.

Rough like him, and pure like her.


	17. Losing my grip every time that you're holding me

Waking up was somehow more difficult when situated next to a warm body, Sam found: the effort it took her to shake off the warm, still-welcome haze of sleep enough to open her eyes was _enormous_ all of a sudden.  After that, just turning around was an effort ten times as hard, made more difficult by the arm that Gabriel had draped casually around her waist to keep her close during the night.  His fingers moved over the sheet, sleepily caressing her warm form underneath it and causing her to smile as she slowly turned to face him, watching his face.  He looked almost innocent when he was asleep – relaxed, all of his troubles far for now, dreaming whatever dreams he had – and she sighed softly, trying to fall asleep again in his hold but failing, opening one eye to look at him again each time.  She still felt a tinge of fear when she considered the way Gabriel had thrown open the doors of her heart: so easily, like he held the keys ready, like the locks were calibrated for his fingerprints...  And yet, she mused, that same fact that gave rise to such panic before now reassured her.  He wouldn't break her, because he had felt it as well.  He had admitted that she'd just waltzed into his heart and opened the floodgates in exactly that same way.  More than that, he'd gladly let her – then why shouldn't she do the same and offer him _her_ heart?  'You only need one reason.  One reason is enough.  And I've got _hundreds_.', she mused, smiling and opening her eyes again to find herself looking directly into his brilliant blue ones.

“Bonjour, mon ange.”, he said, grinning cheekily.

“Oh, _not fair_ – you were awake the whole time, weren't you?”, she asked, and he shook his head.

“No, just woke up now, when you sighed so happily – j'suis heureux que je t'ai rendu heureuse, Sam, et j'devais te regarder.  Any moment not spent lookin' at ya, especially right now, when the world isn't knockin' at our door yet, is a moment wasted.”, he admitted, causing her to smile at him, broadly and warmly.

“Aren't you charming in the morning, monsieur Dantan...  Well, I plead guilty – I was looking at you before and thinking how relaxed you looked.  Relaxed and innocent.  Nothing like a sinner, more like a saint.”

“Well, a night with an angel like you will do that to a man.”, Gabriel said, winking at her before running his hand over her back slowly.  “...T'es ravissante maintenant.”

“Now you're exaggerating, Gabriel – my hair is _all over the place_ and I probably drooled in the night-”, she said shyly, which led to her fellow pyro chuckling.

“Well, here's the weird thing about all that – _I don't fuckin' care_.  You are lookin' wonderful even with your hair stickin' up on one side and your eyes still all gritted up from sleepin'.  Hell, you'd look gorgeous any way to me.”  He kissed her tenderly before leaning her forehead against his and admitting softly: “...I wish we could spend all Sunday right here.  Like this.”

“Wouldn't you just _love_ that?”, she asked with a lenient smile, and he nodded.

“Mais oui, naturellement!  J'ai aucune besoin si j'suis près d'toi, Sammy, mon ange – well, no need except for needin' you, of course-”

“You mean needing me close or needing me _close_?”, she asked, emphasizing the last word of her question by squeezing his shoulder, and he rolled his eyes, grinning somewhat deviously as he replied with a hint of mirth in his voice.

“Oh, well, I can't ever know for sure, one need's a little too linked with the other... but for the sake of the moment, let's say needing your _warmth_ and not your incredible _heat_.”  To add substance to his words, he gently kissed her on the cheek before pressing his lips to hers again, the kiss lengthy and yet light.  Once they parted again, they just lay in the silence of the morning, basking in each other's presence and enjoying the easy silence between them – Sam pressed her ear to Gabriel's chest, hearing the reassuring, fast-paced beating of his heart, and he grinned and kissed her fingertips before allowing them to thread themselves in his hair again.  Slowly but surely, the hallway became alive with sounds: footsteps passing the door, someone whistling on his way to breakfast – Gabriel presumed that it was Archie at first, until she pointed out that the tune was 'Alouette' and her fellow pyro chuckled and nodded, agreeing that it could be none other than Arsène instead – the heavy footfalls of the soldier coming from the opposite side of the hallway, the distant running of water in the showers...  Nothing made Sam detach from her lover, not even when footsteps paused outside of their door – maybe Dell or Archie, intending to ask whether she wanted breakfast but relenting.  Gabriel had had a point when he said he didn't have a need except for her: she had to admit that breakfast or a bathroom break were the last thing on her mind as she lay in an embrace with the much taller man, running her hand slowly over his left arm, gently running a fingertip along the edge of the bandana he had tied around it and faintly wondering what was below it, but then Gabriel sighed and looked at her.

“...Oh, did I-”, she started, intending to ask if she'd done something wrong, but he already preemptively shook his head with a rueful smile.

“No, Sam... but... let's leave this mornin' as wonderful as it is.  I want you to see... but not today, okay?”  His eyes betrayed sadness, which prompted Sam to run a hand over his cheek.

“Je suis désolé, Gabriel... can you forgive me?  I... let's just-”  Suddenly, her cellphone gave a muted little bleep to indicate she'd gotten a text message and she rolled her eyes.  “Hold that thought.”  Flipping open her phone, she quickly looked just to make sure that it wasn't important: it was a message from Archie that simply read 'check ya watch and send him off its noon and its getting kinda gross' and that got her to blush.  Had they really been in bed until _noon_?

“Qu'est-ce qui se passe, Sam?”, Gabriel asked, and she showed him the text, causing chuckles to erupt from him.  “...Who's he callin' 'gross', li'l Boston jerkoff – he an' Arsène are even _worse_.  ...But I suppose we've got to eat by now.  ...Will ya be able to handle the guys an' their questions?”, he asked as he looked her over, the both of them getting out of her bed.  She shrugged, mentally steeling herself for the questions that she knew were bound to follow – mid-thought, she fished his underpants from underneath her skirt and handed them to him, shaking her head.  “Non?”, he asked in surprise, and she rolled her eyes.

“I think I can handle eight men with ease, Dantan, as long as they don't have your fire and charisma.”

“Dieu nous garde.”, her lover reacted drily, handing her her underwear just after she'd put on her skirt again, raising an eyebrow as she put on her bra before stepping into her panties again.  “...I have to rephrase that: Dieu me garde.  I don't think I'm gonna live through today, Sammy.  Can't ya come with me to RED side?  I promise I'll be good until I get you all to myself.”

“Put those pants on, Gabriel – and no.  Nevermind that I don't believe you can keep your hands off me an entire day...”, she said, placing her hand on his as he ran it over her arm, as if to emphasize her point, “...your team might want to spend some time with you.”  Gabriel predictably scoffed, but after a few seconds, he nodded.

“...Bien, oui...  Ya never know, Grant might wanna have a talk...  Quand v'je t'revoir?”, he asked, and she smiled.

“Ask Billy when he can make himself scarce and we can embarrass _your_ teammates for a change.  But not tonight – Siegfried might not appreciate me not maintaining a strict sleeping schedule for one night, or two, or three, a week...”, she said, blushing when Gabriel very gently sniffed her shirt before handing it back to her, apparently not bothering to button up his own shirt anymore, “...but he won't object as long as I get at least one night with eight hours of decent, fulfilling sleep.”

“Ah bien, donc pas aujourd'hui, mais demain?”, Gabriel asked hopefully, his eyes pleading and his tone beyond pitiable, and Sam relented before she had the chance to even tease him a little.

“Can't say no to you... now _out_ with you, before the others start thinking I'm starving myself for your sake.”  He let himself be pushed out easily, Sam mused – halfway through the hallway, he wrapped an arm around her waist, grinning broadly.  “...See you tomorrow on the battlefield-”

“-and tomorrow evening in my bed, hmm?”, he asked with a wink before leaning down and kissing her longingly and at length: she indulged in the kiss, figuring they needed something to make sure they could go the next twenty-four hours without one another, but the longer it lasted, the more she found she didn't want to let him go – and the more urgently clear it became to her that she _had_ to let him go back to his own side of the base.  In the end, when they parted again, both out of breath and looking at each other in near-painful desire, it was little surprise that they both huffed indignantly, upset that they were expected to each go on and pretend they didn't want to just tear down a few walls and be together again.  “Oh, Sam, j'veux pas...”

“Moi non plus.”, she admitted, though she added a second later: “...But we have to.  We've got to consider the others as well.”

“...Yeah, the others...”, Gabriel softly repeated, his tone making perfectly clear just what the others could go and do as far as he was concerned – sighing, his shoulders slumped, the other pyro turned around and walked off, looking around at her before disappearing behind the corner – only then did Sam head inside herself, taking a few cleansing breaths to collect her calm again and push away her indignant anger at the situation.  Dell and Archie and the others couldn't help it that she'd fallen for someone on the opposing team, after all – she'd done that all by herself.

Her stomach growling did make things easier: as she caught the scent of grilled cheese and ham wafting from the dining room, she found her mind focusing on the first thing she required now that Gabriel was far from her side again, which was food.  Another deep breath, this time to mentally steel herself for the others' reactions and their teasing, and then she pushed open the door.

“...Well, good afternoon, gentlemen...”, Sam said as she walked inside, finding the medic and the heavy present in the couch before the television and the engineer discussing something with the demoman over a couple of sandwiches at the dining room table.  “Oh, those look delicious, Dell, did you-”

“So Gabriel finally left for home, huh?”, the soldier asked; Dell gave him a scathing look, but suddenly the entire room seemed to have been muted, everyone looking at Sam or the soldier, or between the two of them.

“Sadly, yes.  I was hoping we could be hospitable but Archie made it perfectly clear that I was expected to turn up for lunch sans Gabriel.  ...Also...”, she added when four of the eight men seemed to want to speak up, her eyes narrowing, “...let's first get a few things straight here.  The first man to say _anything_ lewd will get my Backburner up his back-end.  The first one of you that is _enough of a moron_ to disapprove will get his pretty face stuck on my wall like a game trophy.  And the first one to ever, _ever_ abuse Gabriel, in _any way_ , about this... let's just say you'll _never stop screaming your agony_...”  The men looked at her, wide-eyed, pale and utterly speechless – and then she smiled and took one of Dell's sandwiches.  “But you are allowed to know that I enjoyed a very nice dinner with Gabriel last night.  And that we intend to have dinner again in the future.”

“And that ya gonna go over ta RED side tomorrow night...”, Archie muttered right next to her ear, taking care not to let anyone but perhaps Dell hear.  Sam looked at him to see a somewhat smug, satisfied grin on his face, but it wasn't in the least bit teasing or mocking and she relaxed again.

“...That's allowed, as far as I'm aware.”

“Ohohow, _man_ , Sam, soldja boy Johnnie an' doctor Hartmann are gonna _murder_ ya.”

“Yes, well, they can voice their objections _afterwards,_ and then _I_ will be voicing some very choice swearwords to them.  I mean, what Gabriel and I do together is _our_ business and our business _alone_ -”

“As long as you do not keep any of zhe ozhers from zheir sleep und return to us in time for zhe battle, du hast recht.”, Siegfried said, joining the conversation – Yaroslav sat down next to Sam and opposite his friend, blushing softly but keeping quiet as he ate one 'sandvich' of his near-constant stock.  “...Und, uh, I zhink Yarozlav vould like me to add 'as long as you and he try and be kviyet' – zhat isn't zhe lewd remark, but zhe... _freundlicher Rat_.”, the German said emphatically when Sam groaned, causing her to blush even more than she already did.

“Oh, n-no, I just... I thought we _were_ quiet... you got an earful, didn't you?”  The medic nodded, which in turn caused the pyro to sigh again, hiding her face by burying it between her arms and the table, doing her utmost best to ignore the laughter of Tavish and Jane.

 

“Son, y'did great out there.”, Grant said, causing Gabriel to grin and accept the compliment graciously.  Then, however, the engineer waved a hand in front of his face and winked at him before speaking again: “Now hit them showers, y'smell like somethin' from th'side of the road.”

“I _feel_ like it, too.”, the pyro admitted, looking at his undershirt to see it was stained in a variety of colors again.  “Man, I feel like I've run laps around the base non-stop all day-”

“Heh, now yeh know y'ain't really done tha', there were times yeh sat by mah dispenser too.  By the way, tha' reminds me, y'owe me a cold one – just after yeh left, Arsène turned up, sapped mah sentry.  Showed 'im a li'l Texas-style southern hospitality.”, he said, patting the wrench on his belt and getting Gabriel to grin as well, this time a little more broadly.

“Ah, that's why he was clutching his shoulder when Radovan shot him.  ...Well, _you_ owe me a cold one too, so we're even.”, he stated a second later, patting the engineer on the shoulder and causing the other man to blink and look up at him.

“An' why would ah owe yeh a beer, Gabe, son?”

“...Well, while you were having a little conversation with John about where best to place your teleporter entrance, Sam came to pay us a visit.”  Now the engineer nodded and chuckled.

“If'n ah r'member right, y'all came outta respawn a minute or so after th'Administrator announced that she'd captured our intel.”, he said, and Gabriel nodded.

“What you can't possibly remember, is that Arsène, Archie _and_ Theo were with her an' I took care of the Aussie shithead, sent our charming French connard to go up in flames an' then planted my Axtinguisher right in that Boston half-pint's pea-brain.  And _then_ I got roasty-toastied by Sammy.  Ah, she sure knows how to set me on fire-”

“...Which reminds me, Gabe, son.”, Grant said – by then the two men had already arrived at the door to the engineer's workplace, and Gabriel halted for a second to listen to what his friend had to say: “Ah'm bein' mighty kind by puttin' Billy up fer the night – don't y'go repayin' mah kindness by misbehavin' too much with Sam.  Ah know, ah know...”, he added a second later, when Gabriel meant to speak up, “...askin' y'all to contain yerselves 's like askin' a tiger not tuh eat a juicy steak when it's dropped in front'a it, but... try an' let th'rest'a us sleep, y'hear?”  For a second, Gabriel felt outraged, but then he nodded slowly.  Grant only meant to warn them that they'd still had to do battle the next day, and that some of the others would have some choice words to say to him over breakfast if they'd lost any sleep.

“Yeah, well, ya know me – never gonna be able to put a sock in it, Grant, but... hell, sure, we'll do our best to, uh, give you and the others a calm night.  ...Mais peut-être, un jour, on doit parler de ça un peu plus.  'Cause I am _not_ gonna keep tiptoein' around you guys.  L'amour est belle chose, j'ne l'caches pas pour toujours.”

“'m Just sayin' – _ah_ 'm askin' yeh kindly, doc Hartmann or John ain't gonna be as understandin' as ah'm bein' now.”, the engineer said before opening the door to his room, which was a sure sign to the pyro that the conversation was over; heading to his own room, he took his towel and some clean underwear as well as his regular soap and shampoo and took his suit off before making his way to the showers, which were almost all in use save for one.  As he passed the men, Billy gave him a weak smile and he grinned back.  It figured, he mused while he stepped out of his old underwear and tossing it in the laundry basket, that it would be the scout that had saved him his regular separate shower cubicle so he could shower all the more quickly.  But that wasn't what he was going to do, not that day, not with Sam coming over after she'd done her chores for her team.  'No', he mused as he put an ample amount of shampoo on his hands and started washing his hair vigorously, 'No, I am gonna _lavish_ now.  For Sam, I've gotta be perfect'.  The others left the showers already – one by one they turned the running water off, until he was the only one still letting the water wash down over him, at which point he sighed and leaned his head back, letting the water wash over his face as well, trickling down his neck and shoulders.  Only then did he switch his own shower unit off and step out, reaching blindly for his towel and, as soon as he found it, toweling his face dry before drying off the rest of his body briskly.  He felt nervous because Sam hadn't seen his room before; and even if it was basically the same room as she and Archie shared, to him it couldn't have been more different, maybe because it had been the room where he and Billy had slept together so many nights, or because his bed felt like a safe haven where not even the pyromania could get a hold of his heart...  Shaking his head, he smiled softly, telling himself that that was the reason why he wanted her to come over to his room as well.  Sam had a hold of his heart, and so she was allowed in his safe zone.  He wanted to share everything with her – not just his body, which he'd used as a disposable article for years, and not just his heart, because that had belonged to Billy only too recently, but his soul, his life, his every secret.  Billy knew them all as well, or most of them at any rate – he hadn't ever felt the need to tell the scout about Lander or his life back in Canada, and Billy had never been too curious about his past...

'...Actually, si j'suis honnète, tous les fois que nous avons parlé... c'était après d'nous baiser...  Well, _hell_ , did I do anythin' apart from _use_ Will for my pleasure?', he mused, shaking his head as he walked to his room, where Billy was sitting on the side of his bed, reading through a magazine.

“'Ey, c'mon, Gabe, ya gotta hurry up if ya still wanna see Sam today, man – ya still need ta start preppin' dinnah-”

“No, I don't, it's already in the oven, me an' Grant took care of it right after battle.  But I should head back to the kitchen, now that ya mention it, si j'ai pas fait le dîner aussi bien que normal-”

“Then the othas are gonna think Sam's distractin' ya, huh?”, the scout said, blinking when he saw the pyro pick up his Axtinguisher from against the wall – Gabriel simply grinned and walked to the dining room, where everyone was present and sitting in their places, waiting for their dinner.  Billy sat down quickly in his usual spot, but Gabriel looked the men over for a second before speaking up loudly.

“Bon, attendez – listen up, ya sorry assholes!  I'm gonna be honest with all of you for a change – I'm gettin' a visitor tonight.  You all know who so I'm not gonna bother mentioning a name, and you all know I only came back to base last Sunday in the afternoon so I won't bother makin' clear that you don't need to come knockin' on my door until breakfast tomorrow... but here's the deal.  The first one that makes a comment, _any_ comment, to me or to her or to _anyone_ , is gettin' _this_...”, he said emphatically as he raised his Axtinguisher so the silent, somewhat dismayed crowd of eight at the table could take a good look, especially at the bloodstains the vicious-looking weapon had accumulated over the years, “...shoved up their ass and into their itty bitty _brains_.  Compris?  ...Ya got that?”, he translated himself when no answers came, and quickly the gathered men nodded when he glared at them.  Grant was the only one that raised an eyebrow before nodding.  “...Bien, let's eat then!”, Gabriel said after some seconds of silence, propping his Axtinguisher against the wall and heading into the kitchen to take the casseroles from the oven, finding that inside them, the chicken had remained moist while being cooked inside and out.  He smiled softly when he considered telling Sam later that he'd cooked dinner in record time just so he could have more time with her, somewhere in between kisses – the thought was enough to make him roll his eyes and wonder whether he'd be able to lay off her for long enough to get even the beginnings of a coherent sentence formed, and whether he even _wanted_ to.  Somewhat distracted, he served dinner and then ladled himself a healthy helping of the finely cut vegetables he'd added to the chicken in the pot.  The conversation in the room left him able to retreat to his own musings – in the end, he considered it a good thing that Grant nudged him gently and motioned for his empty plate: because when he did look up from it, he saw that he, the engineer and Graeme were the only three still left in the dining room.  The demoman snored loudly when Grant nudged him, causing the engineer to chuckle.

“Guess it's jus' yew an' me, Gabe, son...  ...So, when's Sam comin' over?”

“Eight.  She said she wanted to take a shower after doing the dishes-”

“Suddenly ah feel sorry fer the BLUs – if'n Sam smells even half's bad as yew did earlier-”

“Elle a le senteur d'une rose-”, Gabriel said, smiling when he remembered her face as he'd given her the rose the other day.  “Elle est plus belle qu'une rose, et pas si frêle...”, he said as he started running water over the dishes, adding detergent and letting the foam rise in the sink.  “...She's an angel, Grant, an angel of fire.  _My_ angel of fire.”

“Son, outta all 'em metaphors, yeh _had_ t'go with th'one with the one tha' had 'fire' in it, huh?”, the engineer said, watching him wash the dishes and shaking his head, occasionally putting one back into the soapy water.  “...Better pay 'tention t'yer dishes, too – if'n Sam's distractin' yew from yer duties...”

“Yeah, yeah, j'sais – I _fuckin' know_ , then she won't be allowed to come over again...”, Gabriel grumbled, motioning airily with a plate in his hands, causing the engineer to quickly pluck it out of his hands and dry it off.  “...Hell, I won't screw this up.  Not when I've been lookin' forward to Sammy's visit since this mornin'-”

“And since yesterday, if'n yeh're bein' honest t'yerself, son – yeh may _think_ ain't no one tha' noticed yer lookin' at the television without seein' tha' there movie, but y'pretty much have t'be blind not tuh see a man in love.  ...Okay, ah guess ah c'n let yeh go now – it's ten to eight an' yeh gotta make sure yer room looks presentable.  ...An' Gabriel?”, he added, causing the pyro to look up from within the fridge, where he was digging around for the bottle of vanilla gin he'd put in there especially for Sam's visit, figuring it'd be nice to have something to offer her that he knew she'd like.  “...Treat 'er right, y'hear?  She's a real fine, proper lady an' y'ain't exactly real _experienced_ dealin' with th'ladies-”

“Pfeh, j'pense que j'sais comment me comporter autour d'elle.  I _know_ I've gotta behave my best around her – you think I'd be a fuckin' bastard around _her_ again?  I thought you knew me, Grant.  ...'Sides, I'm bettin' I can treat her better than you can.  Last time _you_ got any was nine fuckin' years ago – back when you still _had_ a _wife_.”

“Yeah, yeah, ah know, 'm ancient an ah'm divorced, tha' makes me a sorry sonuvabitch, huh?  ...'m jus' sayin'.  Treat 'er right, she's th'only one yeh're ever gon' get that's gonna put up with'cher sheeyit, son.”

“And don't I know it.”, he said, finally digging up the bottle of gin from behind three cans of Billy's energy drink: raising it triumphantly, he grinned at Grant.  “See ya tomorrow mornin', dead fuckin' tired but damn satisfied, mon ami.”

“Too much darn information, Dante, son!”, the engineer protested with a soft chuckle as Gabriel briskly walked past to his room.  The pyro was in _miraculously_ high spirits all of a sudden, thinking about how he'd be holding Samantha in his arms in just a little under ten minutes and willing time to go faster so those ten minutes would seem like a heartbeat.  However, when he considered that he still had to clear his room so she wouldn't faint due to the mess it was in, he mused that maybe ten minutes was a godsend.

“...Well, let's see how much work we've still got...”, he said with a sigh as he opened his room, which, to his surprise, was empty and reasonably uncluttered – on his desk lay a note from the scout that read three sentences.  “ _'Dante, ya owe me a drink for kickin' me outta my room.  Treat Sam like a princess an' don't let her treat you like anything less.  Thank God Grant's got earplugs.'_ Ah, well, couldn't have hoped for more from him.”, Gabriel said, reading the note out loud and snorting when he considered the mention of earplugs.  “I'm gonna have to have a talk to Arch' an' Dell – stupid fuckin' idiots think it's _funny_ to-”

“-to tell you to keep it down every chance they get, huh?”, came the offhand reply from the doorway, and Gabriel turned around to see the object of his affections stand in the doorway wearing loose track pants and a T-shirt that showed off every curve on her amazing body.  He couldn't help himself, he found: taking three large strides to her, he wrapped her arms around him and kissed her long enough to make him feel dizzy, neither minding nor caring that the door was still open and that Radovan, who passed them by with his toothbrush in his hands, was looking at them so much that he walked right into the door to the showers.

“Ah, mon ange... I loved that.  You finishin' my sentence, I mean, mais le bisou était grand aussi, naturellement.”, he admitted, his heart feeling like it'd explode if he didn't do something soon.  Just having Sam stand there, in the doorway to his room, having promised her evening and her night just to him... it was enough to make his every sense jump to overdrive.  “And _damn_ , you smell... t'as le senteur des fleurs de forêt, j'peux pas m'arrêter d'en sentir.”

“...I'm glad you like it.”, she said, allowing herself to be pulled inside by him so he could close the door.  As soon as it was closed, he leaned down to kiss her again, more passionately this time, and he found that his head spinning before had been an illusion, clearly, because he seemed to have found a way to completely lose all use of his mental faculties the more he tasted of her.  However, Sam pulled away from him all too soon, taking a few slightly more rapid breaths before motioning for the desk and the cooled bottle of gin he'd brought.  “...D'you have plans to get me off this planet today or what?”, she asked, her voice teasing and the sparkle in her eyes both mischievous and tantalizingly sensual, and he nearly groaned before realizing she expected an answer.

“I figured 'better have some in case Sammy would like to enjoy a drink' – and as for those plans, ya know I don't need liquor for that...”  Grinning, he pulled her against himself, finding her gladly running her hands over his arms to his shoulders, where they rested as she replied.

“Oh, I know that... I just... need _reminding_ sometimes of how utterly _perfect_ you are at giving me wings...”  Her tone was heated to the point of inspiring firestorms with just one syllable, he found, and he turned his attention away from the bottle and towards the more important of his indulgences: leaning down, he kissed her deeply again, and from that point onwards he let actions far outweigh anything either of them could say.

 

“Sam!!”  Despite rockets flying around pell-mell and bullets whizzing past their ears, Sam could still hear Archie's shout clearly, prompting her to grin behind her mask.

“Mmhmm?”

“Dell needs ya help, sistah – someone ta protect his dispensah while he's rebuildin' his sentry on tha next point.”, the scout said, and Sam groaned.  As much as she liked the engineer and enjoyed talking to him, it became tiresome that she had to always go back to him whenever she was taking point.  It hadn't been the first time of the day that she'd been pulled off the advance only for the others to put her back with Dell seeing nothing but sentry fire or burning enemies for an hour until Dell took pity on her and sent her back into the fray.  “I know, I don't like ya goin' back neither, but 's orders for ya.  An' I have to admit, ol' engie's got a point – I ain't seen Pierre for a good half-hour now...”

“Mmmkhmmm thmmnn... phhhth hhhphhh hhm phhrrrrth... hhrrr hmmphh Thmmm mmmphhssshh hhhssh thhssssshphhhshhrrrrr...”, she said, and the scout chuckled as he nodded.

“Yeah, yeah, then ya comin' back to burn some REDs some more – we know, we know.  Get goin' 'fore ya find ol' Hardhat backstabbed an' his sentry reduced ta scrap metal.”  Nodding, she ducked into a hallway that would lead her back to the previous point and left the scout to fend for himself, which he performed admirably if the shouts of pain coming from behind her was any indication.  Finding Dell wasn't hard, she found: he sat against his dispenser, idly holding his his shotgun in one hand and his beer in the other, as though he was relaxing.

“Ah, Sam, pardner – 's this mean ah c'n finally move mah gear up?”, he asked, and she nodded, motioning for the next point.

“Thhh rrrmmmthh hhsshhh khmmmrrrr, hmmm khmmmmnnn khhhh.”

“No Pierre?  It'd be a darn shame if'n ah gotta double back 'cause he's sappin' mah sentry when ah turn mah back... yeah, ah know, y'ain't gonna guarantee he ain't back there, but ah'll take yer word fer it.”, the engineer said as he pushed a button on the side of his sentry, packing it back into a small box that he could carry like a toolbox.  “See y'in a few, Sam, li'l lady.”, he said, running as quickly as his stocky Texan legs could carry him with a hundred-pound toolbox, leaving Sam sitting by the dispenser and pulling off her mask so not every breath smelled like the nondescript chemicals in her air filter.

The pause in the intensity of battle gave her the opportunity to think about how the rest of her week had gone, and it brought a smile to her face along with a blush.  She'd spent Monday night at the RED side of the base, and she probably was going to spend her Friday night with Gabriel in her room again, as well as all of Saturday and a big part of her Sunday as well.  Archie had been slightly upset that she was kicking him out of their room yet again, but he'd understood when she said that he'd do just the same if _he_ was the one that needed privacy with someone.  Arsène had even been so kind to inform her that he'd kicked Theo out of their room; the Australian would sleep in his camper van, as far as she knew, much to the relief of Dell and the others who had first thought the man would take up their couch and mess up their living room.  And Gabriel had certainly been enthusiastic about it, if his added fire on the battlefield was any indication of his ardor for her: he'd single-handedly killed Yaroslav and Siegfried the previous day, even despite the fact that the medic's Übercharge had forced him into staging a two-phase attack – he'd skillfully taken a detour and ended up behind them, at which point his Backburner-

“Sam!”  The shout got her to look up to see Dell running back at her, looking slightly wounded – he had a limp and his hardhat looked lopsided.  Quickly, she scurried to her feet again, picking up her Backburner as she stood.  “They're fightin' like crazy over at th'next point...”

“Jane wants me to stick around here in case they don't hold their ground, then?”, she asked, and the engineer panted, coming to a stop a few feet from her, hands on his kneepads.

“Yeah.  'Sides, Dante's lookin' fer yeh.”  Sam rolled her eyes: her fellow pyro had tried to find her on the battlefield about once every hour or so, figuring that he had the sole right to kill her, it seemed – or feeling that it was fairer that he be the one to take care of her, since he now did so outside the battlefield as well, she mused with a lopsided grin.  'Mm, have to be careful or he's going to tempt me into his special brand of dirty behaviour as well...', she mused softly, turning her attention back to Dell.

“Gabriel's not going to come looking for me just yet, not until they've captured that point back or until John gives him the okay to take point and scout out the next point.  He loves killing me, yes, but he's not that much of a fool in love to disobey orders, he knows he doesn't need trouble with John.”

“Ah, yeh're prob'ly right, Sam, dahlin'-”, the engineer said – and it was that last word that alerted Sam.  Cursing profusely, she squeezed the trigger of her flamethrower, dousing Pierre in flames and ending his disguise in a heartbeat.  “ _Oh meeeeerde!_ ”, the spy cursed – he tried to stab Sam with his butterfly knife as a last ditch attempt to wound her, but she kneed him in the groin and he doubled over, sagging to the ground with a pained whimper, his body curled up and blackened.  “'Ow d-did you k-kno-know?”, he asked, and Sam snorted.

“Wouldn't you like to know, huh?”  She took out her shotgun and aimed carefully for the spy's chest, shooting him to kill him instantly, sending him to respawn immediately.  “Oh, but try again and you'll get your head chopped off, Pierre!”, she said, shaking her head as the remains of the RED spy faded from view.  Then, however, she bit her lip.  “...Shit, did he kill Dell, or did he just take his shape?”

“...Yo Sam, did ya see ol' Hardhat?  We need his sentry at that point, Jane's practically havin' a heart attack.  Solly boy was threatening somethin' to do with that fuckin' whip he's got-”

“Ah'm here – tell Jane ah'm buildin' a new sentry an' I'm placin' it on tha' there point 's soon as ah can.  ...Sorry fer the scare, Sam, pardner, guess Pierre were waitin' fer me tuh make a wrong move.  Ah'm takin' Arch with me fer movin' tha' there sentry 's soon as ah git it built up 'gain.”  The engineer took out one of his sketches and placed it on the ground, from where metal seemed to automatically appear, clicking together and rising to form the tripod-mounted gun that he instantly started to finetune,  until the large rocket-launcher and the twin machine guns were properly hooked up and primed, at which point he looked at Sam.  “...Seems 'bout righ'.  Now, Arch, yeh watch mah back – if'n anything moves that ain't BLU, y'shoot it.  Sawed-off fer enemies, baseball bat fer checkin' if'n it's not Pierre in 'nother disguise, awri-”

“Shmmmmmm!!”  The loud, almost roaring exclamation preceded Gabriel into the clearing where the three of them stood: the pyro apparently didn't notice the sentry she stood only four steps away from, focused on her as he was.  “Nhhhhvhhh hhhh-”  The sentry's proximity detector bleeped once, the sound of it drowned out by Gabriel's exclamation, but the loud rattle of the machine guns followed by the high-pitched whine of one of the four rockets firing from the rocket-launcher interrupted his exclamation, and before Sam had the opportunity to speak even a single word, Gabriel's body was reduced to a splatter of blood on some rocks and a stray foot, boot still attached, that fell to the ground right next to the point before fading from view.

“...Oh god, Gabriel, that...  I am sorry, love-”

“'Ey, _ewww_ , don't ya go 'round callin' Dante 'love', that is fuckin' _disgustin'_!!  Jeez, Sam, we know ya ain't got taste but there ain't no reason to _rub it in_ , ya know...”, Archie complained loudly, causing the pyro to turn to him.

“I will call Gabriel whatever I want and you will _deal_ with it, Archie, because otherwise my foot'll plant itself up your backside so deep my toes'll tickle your tongue!”

“Young'ins, 's now the time t'go arguin' 'bout what Sam calls Dante?”, Dell intervened quickly, causing Archie to cross his arms, reduced to _thinking_ protests instead of voicing them, and Sam sighed.

“I'm sorry, Dell, but... well... Gabriel's a touchy subject...”, she admitted, causing the engineer to chuckle and nod.

“Ah gathered 's much.  Well, 's long as ya ain't gon' spare him on th'battlefield none...”

“I promise, Dell – you know me well enough by now, do you think I'd disregard my orders?  Let me tell you, the day I start sparing Gabriel on the battlefield is the day when you should start to worry about me.”  Nudging the engineer's hardhat so it stood lopsided on his head, she chuckled and added: “ _Then_ , not _before_.”

“Heck yeah!”, the engineer admitted, reaching down to his sentry again to get it to recede back into its oversized toolbox for transporting, and Sam pulled her mask back over her head, ready to defend the dispenser from anyone trying to destroy it.

 

“...Here we go, Gabriel!”, Sam said brightly as she re-entered the room, causing him to turn around and see the woman of his dreams hold the breakfast of his dreams.

“Qui as-tu seduite pour ceci?”, he asked, and Sam patted him on the shoulder as she held out a fork to him.

“No one – well, no one apart from Dell, and he's not really competition-”

“Pfeh, _everyone_ on _both_ our teams wants _you_ , Sammy, even the guys that chase a different kind of tail and even the guys that are way older than you.  So everyone's competition.  J'dois te garder à moi-même.”, he admitted, winking at her to soften the statement even though he genuinely felt a little jealous of how close Sam was to her team's engineer.  “...Je dois te trésorer, j'le jure – gotta make sure ya're in my arms as often as possible so the others all know that if they mess with you, they mess with _me_.”

“I think, mon amour, they already know that.”, Sam said, holding out a fork to him with a piece of pancake speared on it that was dripping with chocolate sauce: he gladly let her feed it to him, licking a stray droplet of chocolate sauce off his lips and enjoying the taste of that morsel of breakfast.  “...You like them?”, she asked, grinning when he nodded.  They were better than his own, even without the caramel sauce he usually made on Saturday mornings to go with his own breakfast – and he had no doubt that, when he told her about how he made his, she'd insist on having them just like that.  Perhaps even wanting to eat breakfast at his side the next Saturday just to try his caramel sauce – his heart leapt up at the thought and made him speak the words to accomplish that goal.

“...Ya know, the only way they could be any better is with my own caramel sauce.  Nothin' but sugar, water, cream – and especially for you, mon ange, tender lovin' care.”  As he'd hoped, she perked up at the mention of his specialty, looking suddenly very eager at the thought alone.

“Oh, that... that sounds delicious, Gabriel.  Maybe you should make pancakes with caramel sauce for me sometime... sometime soon...”  Then, however, she took another fork and speared a bit of pancake for herself, eating it with relish and smiling at him.  “But for now, let's focus on the breakfast we _have_ and not the breakfast we _will have_ – I'm sorry if it's not much for the two of us, but Jane would probably kill me if I used 'our team's precious food' to feed someone 'on the enemy team'.  He's, uh, a little _fervent_ when it comes to our job.”

“Probably got a bit of shrapnel to the brain if ya ask me.”, he said, shaking his head before chuckling and adding: “Ya know, I don't really get how that works.  I mean, our soldiers used to be army buddies, they served in the same base and everythin'... and Pierre's practically Arch's new dad, what with him datin' mrs. Jessup – I tell ya, the first time I saw Archie's mom kiss our French slicker, right in front of Archie, with a bat in 'is hands, I was expectin' one of them to go to bed with a black eye.  But I guess Archie's learnt to live with it-”

“Pierre got Archie his job.”, Sam supplied, and Gabriel blinked.  As far as he'd seen, Archie had only ever been tolerant of his future stepfather if he was drunk – which Pierre was upset about every time it happened, probably because a drunk Archie didn't often sleep in his own bed but Arsène's – or on visitor's day.  He'd always suspected that the BLU scout acted his acceptance on that day to spare his mother.  However, Sam seemed convinced that Archie was being genuine, and there was the fact that the scout didn't behave overtly hateful to Pierre.

“C'est vrai?  ...Huh...”

“Yeah.  ...Oh, say, talking about inter-team bonds – Grant and Dell?”, she asked, looking questioningly at him, causing him to slowly nod.  He understood what she was asking without speaking.

“J'sais pas.  They're from different states, and they _didn't_ serve like Janey and Johnnie did... but I agree, they've got to have some history, because they get along a lot better than most of the others.  Well, uh, apart from you and me, that is...”, he admitted, chuckling when Sam pushed a piece of pancake past his lips, chewing it quickly to be able to continue: “...I don't know, though.  Maybe they're actually related?  Different branches of the family?  Like, one and the same granddad?”

“That's... pffff...”, Sam said in between liberal chuckles, shaking her head.  “Maybe we should ask them?”

“And risk them beating our asses for gossipin' about them?  Ouais, jamais d'ma vie... I mean, did you ever _see_ Grant's wrench?  He made that thing to _maim_ , not to build.  If he uses that on me-”

“He would never, he loves you like a son.  Or, uh, a brother?”, she said, and suddenly Gabriel felt more than a little self-conscious.  Sam knew his age, but she'd never mentioned it overtly like that before.  All of a sudden, he felt _ancient_ compared to her, the more than ten years of age difference feeling insurmountable more than they'd ever felt with him and Billy, proving to him once again that the depth of his love for Sam was more profound than anything he'd ever experienced before.  Taking a little steadying breath, he cleared his throat which suddenly felt constricted and answered.

“Brother, then – after all, he's forty-two an' I'm thirty-five.”  Looking Sam over, he all of a sudden found himself compelled to add the question that was now burning on his mind: “...Sammy, j'dois... I mean, I gotta ask... the age difference, doesn't it... I don't know, to you I've got to seem fuckin' _ancient_ and like the worst kind of guy...”

“That's not true!”, she instantly said, pushing herself up so she could sit on the edge of her desk and look at him.  “Gabriel, I wasn't looking for someone my own age.  I wasn't looking for someone whole.  I wasn't looking at all, and yet I fell for you like a ton of bricks.  It doesn't matter to me how old you are, or how damaged, or how lowly you think of yourself.  I think the world of you, and I wouldn't want to trade you for anyone in the world.”  Reaching down to grab his hand, she held it as she continued, her words making his sudden unease and insecurity melt away again: “I mean, we share the same interests, we share a similar pain of having lost someone, we share our love for having a good time no matter what others think about it... we're both honest at the depth of our being...”, she said, and he grinned at how she phrased that sentiment.  They'd both had their share of dishonesty in the near past, of course, and they both knew how much they'd disliked having to lie.  “...Oh, and let's not leave out the most important part...”, she added with a knowing smile that he couldn't help but answer.

“We're both in love?”, he tried, and her smile broadened despite her shaking her head.

“Well, the _two_ most important things, then, because you're right, we are in love... but the most important thing is that we both will _never_ give the other up.  I'm hanging on to you, Gabriel, whatever our love affair brings us; and I know that you're going to stick with me too.  We've seen how bad we are without each other, now all we've got left to see is how great we can be with each other.”

“Oh, I'll definitely eat to that.”, he said softly, taking the last bite-sized morsel of chocolate sauce-covered pancake and moving it to his mouth, changing course in the last second and offering it to her, allowing her to eat it from his fork just like she'd fed him the first bite.  Internally, he felt like singing – and when he hummed a tune, he wasn't surprised to find Sam softly singing the words, looking as content as ever.

No, Gabriel mused to himself, he would never in a million years give up the happiness she brought him, no matter the price.


	18. Do it with a heart wide open

“Oh, look who joined us!”, Jane said with a grin as Sam walked into the bar together with Gabriel. The soldier's tone was teasing and at the same time genuinely surprised, as if he'd expected not to see her the entire weekend: the pyro rolled her eyes and gave her team's soldier an exasperated look, causing him to add: “What? I thought you and him would be dead tired by now, you stayed indoors all the damn day-”

“Believe me, we stayed inside that room because I didn't want you guys to treat Gabriel the way you've been treating him for the past ten seconds, not for any other reason you may think. Also, _mister Doe_ , just because _you_ would be dead tired after spending a day with your wife in close quarters doesn't mean _Gabriel and I_ are, because clearly we've got more stamina than you do.” Laughter erupted from the others as Jane looked dumbfounded for a second, and even Gabriel hazarded a hasty chuckle.

“Aw man, Jane, ya should'a seen ya face when Sam said she's got more stamina than you got!”, Archie said, going red in the face from how loudly he was laughing – that drew the soldier's attention away from the two pyros and allowed Sam to quickly drag Gabriel to the bar, where they were joined by both scouts as soon as Archie was out of harm's way. “....Heya, Sam, sistah. Glad to see you an' Gabe still wanna come outta _our_ room. Y'aint used my bed, I hope, othawise-”

“Yeah, like I'd dare upset you, ya Boston halfwit.”, Gabriel said, patting the scout on the shoulder amically and with such force that he staggered a good step forward, nearly falling over a barstool. “Glad you distracted ol' solly, too, he looked like he was gonna kill Sammy and then I would've had to intervene.”

“Well, _I_ am just glad all Jane did was _tease_ us.”, Sam admitted, motioning for the bartender to come over and placing a fifty dollar bill on the countertop. “Uh, two times two glasses of vanilla gin on the rocks and two vodka-Red Bull. Oh, keep the change.”, she added when he nodded, causing him to return with overfilled glasses and an overfilled bowl of snack nuts. “Cheers-”

“What are we drinkin' to?”, Archie asked, grabbing one of the two pinkish drinks and handing the other one to his fellow scout; Billy snorted and answered him almost dismissively.

“We're drinkin' to more damn nights with _earplugs_ , that's what we're drinkin' to...”

“Will, just 'cause _you_ think I'm loud-”, Gabriel started, and the scout again scoffed.

“Yeah, right, sure, if it was just you, I could'a handled it, but _Sam..._ Sistah, I ain't _nevah_ wanna hear ya say shit like that again, ya fuckin' worse than _him_ at times!”

“Oh please, you should know better than anyone, Billy-”, Sam started, blushing deeply because he was right, of course, but she abruptly stopped talking when she found both scouts laughing loudly. “Oh, so you think it's _funny_ to embarrass me, huh? Okay then... we'll drink to the fact that it's Saturday night and I'm going to chase all sixteen of you sorry bunch over to RED side as I have my way with Gabriel _as loud as we want to be_.”, she said while raising her first glass – Gabriel clinked his glass against hers, grinning deviously, and Billy and Archie looked as if they'd been forced to swallow an entire lemon. However, in the end, when Sam nudged Archie and winked at him, and Gabriel chuckled as he shook his head, the two scouts relaxed and raised their own glasses.

“Okay, uh, Sammy, mind that second glass for a second, j'dois aller au toilette. Will, Archie, hands off or ya leave here on a gurney.”, he said, and both scouts looked at the glass as if it was a venomous snake. However, as soon as her fellow pyro was out of sight, Billy turned to Sam, his face carefully neutral.

“Yo, uh, Sam, got a sec? ...I mean, can we go outside for a sec?”, he added as she nodded, pulling her arm to urge her to follow, which she did a little apprehensively. He sounded serious, and he had only taken one sip of his drink, which indicated he had something else on his mind. Once they stood outside, he let go of her arm and looked at the ground for a second before looking her right in the eye. “There's stuff ya need ta know 'bout Dante.”

“Like what?”, she asked, wondering what the scout meant, and what he meant to achieve by it. Was he hoping to reveal some deep, dark secret to her in hopes she'd chase him away again, or because he expected her to take care around Gabriel?

“...Like where he keeps his stashes, an' his purse with his lighter an' all. Where he goes when he wants ta start fires or drink himself ta sleep. _Why_ he drinks himself ta sleep. I know all of 'em-”

“Well, of course you do, you and Gabriel were together for two years...”, she said with a soft, understanding smile, only to get interrupted by the scout with an impatient hand gesture and a tone that showed slight annoyance.

“-lemme finish here, Sam! I said, I know all of 'em, but only 'cause I followed 'im when he was in one of his depressed moods. He ain't know I know about 'em. ...What I'm sayin' is... _ask him_. He trusts ya... more'n he ever trusted me.” A sigh followed the scout's words, and Sam patted him on the shoulder consolingly.

“...He trusted you, Billy, I'm sure, but maybe he just... felt like he wasn't strong enough for you?”, she tried, causing the other man to snort and shake his head.

“Pfeh, like he don't know he ain't strong. He was ashamed, an' he knew that tellin' me meant that he couldn't start fires anymore. But with you... Sam, he ain't drunk any of the nights ya weren't there. Last Tuesday was tha first time I ever saw him with a _full_ bottle'a vanilla gin in his hands-” However, suddenly, Billy yelped and jumped a good foot away from her, just seconds before strong arms wrapped around Sam from behind and pulled her right into Gabriel's form, where she could hear how rapid his heartbeat sounded and how his breathing was just a little out of its normal rhythm, showing he was getting excited. Looking up, she saw the expression of anger on his face and she instantly knew Gabriel had overheard them, though she wasn't sure how long or if he'd properly understood why the scout had been telling her what he had. “...I-I-I w-weren't...”

“Sure ya weren't – Will, I wasn't talkin' about just the glass of gin when I said 'hands off'. Sam's _not leavin' my side today_.”, he said, squeezing Sam against himself in a clear attempt to add emphasis to his words; Billy relaxed just a little.

“H-hey, Dante, c'mon, ya know I ain't interested in Sam like that, man!”, he protested with a hint of a smile in his words, and Gabriel let Sam go a little so she could turn in his arms to embrace him in kind, allowing him to kiss her softly and lightly and the scout to pretend to gag. “ _Eugh_ , ya guys, _get a fuckin' room-_ ”

“If only we could – but we have to put up with little shitheads like Archie an' you complainin' about us bein' too loud or 'gross' or 'too damn energetic'... Now _walk_ , William, if ya hated seein' me kiss her, I doubt ya wanna hear me tell Sam-” He didn't need to speak out loud what he was going to say for Billy to run away as if he'd been strapped to a rocket and launched back inside; as soon as the door closed behind the scout, Gabriel chuckled and leaned down to press a kiss on Sam's hair. “...So Will was worried, huh? Or was he lyin' when he said he ain't interested?”, he asked airily, and Sam laughed lightly. It was more than clear, to her and probably to everyone else, that Billy was _not_ indifferent to gender and that he only felt attracted to men, but Gabriel's sudden bout of jealousy clearly made him either forget or miss the fact. All in all, she did her utmost best to keep her voice neutral as she answered.

“I think he'd need to drink a _lot_ more than just the one vodka-Red Bull for him to want any part of me. Never mind the fact that I stole his boyfriend, I think I'm lacking a little in the physical department, mon amour.”

“Yeah, well, not to me ya are. ...Ah, well... you, uh, ya don't mind me bein' a little possessive, ouais?”, he asked, and she giggled softly in reply.

“I think I can handle that. ...But you, you were going to tell me something...”, she asked, and he sighed.

“...Yeah, well, j'l'avais dit pour le faire fuir... I heard what he told ya, Sam, and... well, I wanna tell you all that. Just not now, okay?” The way he looked at her was telltale, she found: his eyes betrayed sadness, his smile was all but gone, and he got worry-wrinkles in his forehead, making him look closer to his age than usually. “...I mean, let's just enjoy bein' with our team tonight – eat, drink, play a round or two in that poker game, go back to base slightly inebriated and keep those shitheads outta their sleep...” He grinned softly as he said it, but that grin turned into a pleading look with a somewhat sorrowful half-smile as he added: “...an' tomorrow afternoon, I'll tell ya everything ya wanna know about my past, about mes péchers, about Lander... about _everything_ . An' I wanna talk to you about your brother, and that job ya had before this one, an' your parents. I wanna lay out all of the cards _wide open_ someplace no one's gonna overhear us, someplace where I can cry if I fuckin' need you and where you can do the same.”

“...Someplace safe.”, she said, looking at her fellow pyro, who nodded. She bit her lip and considered the depth of what he said. He wanted them to open the dungeons of their hearts and go hunting for the skeletons, the spiders, the cobwebs. He wanted them to share their griefs and secrets, all of the sorrows that had never healed. A part of her felt like a hedgehog, wanting to curl up in defense, but that part of her withered away with every passing second as she looked into the deep, dark blue eyes of the man she had given her heart to, and she smiled, nodding. “...Someplace safe.”, she reiterated, whispering the addition in the quiet between them: “As long as we're with each other, alone, I'm safe as I can be.”

“Entre tes bras je me sens en sécurité de même, Sam.”, he said, leaning down, probably meaning to kiss the top of her head again but kissing her lips instead as she looked up at him. “...J'te promets que j'vais tout te dire, mon ange. But now, let's... leave it at a promise, okay? Tonight's not the time. Not yet.”

“I can live with that, Gabriel, mon amour. Let's indulge tonight and leave the pain for tomorrow.”, she admitted, wrapping an arm around her lover as he pulled her back inside, looking as if nothing out of the ordinary had been discussed and holding her close. Only she could feel the way he clutched her close, like a talisman to ward off evil; and only he could ever understand what it meant to her when he squeezed her hand as they sat down at the table.

 

Gabriel woke up from the sound of raised voices in the hallway: woozily grasping around for Sam, he found the bed empty except for himself, which led to his sleep-riddled mind to finally clue in to the fact that one of the voices outside was Sam's. The other voice, unsurprisingly, was Jane's: the soldier seemed to have taken offense in something, and his reaction clearly had caused Sam to take offense in _him_.

“...you an' that hippie RED... ...didn't sleep a _wink_ after that...”

“Well, Jane, _get your ears checked_ , it wasn't us!”, Sam protested loudly – Gabriel unwittingly found himself nodding, understanding what the argument was about. The soldier had been woken up by someone loudly voicing their enjoyment in the night, clearly, but he and Sam had taken particular care not to be loud as they had been the night before, figuring that they needed to try and keep the goodwill of both of their teams.

“Then who else? Nobody else was-”

“Oh, _for fuck's sake_ , I didn't bury my head in a pillow and nearly _suffocate_ last night to get bloody insulted like this! _It was NOT me and Gabriel!!_ ”, Sam nearly shouted, and a soft-spoken voice, probably Dell or doctor Steinheim, joined in the argument only for Sam to stomp away and the soldier to loudly voice his discontent to her back and spew more threats that Gabriel couldn't understand. He nearly stepped out of bed and out of the room to ask the soldier whether he was asking to get his face remodeled when Sam reacted in much the same tone as he had intended to use: “Jane Doe, if you value your life, you _Yankee piece of shit_ , you'll walk back into that door and lock it or so help me, I'm _repeatedly sodomizing you with a broken bottle until all you can shit over the rest of your sorry life is shards of glass_ ! Maybe it was Theo banging that waitress, or it was Arsène getting some, or Archie and Billy over at RED... I don't know, and I do not bloody care, but if you try insulting or threatening me one more time, your wife is going to need to get used to a very _unfulfilling_ sex life because then _I'll cut off your bollocks and feed them to you raw! Jesus fucking Christ!_ ” True to her temper and her tone of voice, Sam nearly threw open the door and slammed it shut loudly. However, as soon as she did so, she instantly looked at him, Gabriel found. “...Oh, no, I... I woke you up just now, didn't I?”

“N-no, solly boy woke me up with his shouting... should I go an' work him over a little? Casser son nez, disloquer sa mâchoire, noircir ses yeux, assommer quelques dents? Le connard putain le mérite bien. Where's he get off, insultin' you because we slept together so _we_ gotta be the ones that cost him his fuckin' beauty sleep...” Instantly, she smiled, which made his heart soar again: she would be the only one in the world that didn't mind all of his swearwords and instead saw the meaning of what he'd said.

“...No, he'll be fine when Dell's talked some sense into that blockhead of his... but I do wonder who would be the one that made the racket last night. I mean, it wasn't _us_ for a change-”

“Oui... Man, though you still made some noises with your head in that pillow that got my blood racin'...”, he admitted truthfully, causing her to blush and grin as well as she remembered the position that had ended her up muffling her cries of bliss into a pillow. “...Bien, pas aujourd'hui.”, he said softly, looking appreciatively at the plate of breakfast she'd carried inside, stacked with enough pancakes to feed the both of them for once, alongside a pot of raspberry jam and something brownish in another jar, something that didn't look at all appetizing as she opened the jar and spread it on the top pancake. “...C'est quoi ça?”, he asked apprehensively, watching her roll up the pancake and take a bite from it with clear relish.

“Spiced biscuit spread. Speculoos.”, she clarified, and he looked at the spread again, sniffing it and instantly recognizing the smell of it; the memory of the taste came to him and he licked his lips.

“...Make one for me too?”, he asked softly, causing her to chuckle and spread some of the thick paste onto another pancake which he then rolled up and ate slowly. “...Merde, c'est bon... pas aussi bien que le caramel, mais... _merde..._ ”, he said after another bite, grinning at Sam who grinned back, pushing away the pot of raspberry jam and spreading the thick biscuit spread over all of the pancakes one by one before rolling them up and putting them on the plate. It took the two pyros no time at all to finish their breakfast, and when they were done, they washed it down with a glass of water before leaning back in their chairs. Gabriel felt relatively calm, even considering the fact that he was now fully focused on the promise he'd made her the previous evening. It was no surprise to him when Sam spoke up softly and tentatively.

“...So, we promised each other we'd talk... how do you want to do this?”, she asked, and he shrugged.

“Maybe sit on the bed, or lay down a little. I mean, just lay down and... be close...”, he said quickly when she gave him a look of surprise, causing her to smile and shake her head.

“I know you just mean for us to be comfy, Gabriel, I hardly think there's anything on your mind right now that involves more than just us holding each other. ...Okay, let's...”, she said, walking to the bed and laying down with her back against the wall, motioning for him to situate himself beside her; once they were properly laying down, their arms loosely resting around the other's body, she spoke up in a half-whisper. “...Do you want to... I don't know, go first?”, she asked, and he shrugged.

“Ouais. I... I think it all stems from this one thing. Quand j'étais vingt-trois, ton age, ma vie était très différente. I was diff'rent back then: I had just gotten my first promotion back at Rocher LaVie – that's, uh, a farmaceutical company where I worked as a chemical engineer, in case ya wondered, tryin' to make new, more efficient meds – and I had a lot more attention for myself. A lot more pride, too, about who I was and how I'd gotten where I was. And my love life was... well, I'd had a relationship with Jacques Desjardins for a year an' a half that ended a li'l before that promotion. Guy was... okay, I guess. Pas l'amour grand, mais l'amour quand même. He wasn't as committed to me as I was to him. ...So, uh, ouais, I got that promotion and I was so happy, so the first thing I did when I got back to Montreal – because back then, I still lived in Vancouver, for the job, tu sais...” He paused for a second there to nuzzle Sam, sniffing in her scent and getting a grip on his jittery nerves again before continuing: “I called up my mom and asked her to dinner to celebrate, which she gladly said yes to. We went to this French restaurant, 'Le Pays du Miel', where we were going to have a three-course dinner and talk about all of the things going on in our lives, because with the job I had to make frequent business trips to fairs and to other branches of Rocher, even in the weekends, which left me little time to see her for over a year... She talked a little about her partner when our entree arrived – we'd both ordered bouillabaise, because the colleague that had given me the tip about the restaurant had said that they had the best bouillabaise of the city and maybe even the province. And... halfway through, she started having trouble. Trouble breathing... and her fingers were swelling, and her face was puffing up...” Gabriel felt tears well up in his eyes, but one look at Sam showed that she, too, could sense his grief and that pushed him on, causing him to speak further: “...I yelled for the staff to call an ambulance, and they arrived quickly, but... when I arrived at the hospital, my mom was in IC. A-and the doctor came out to tell me that... that it was too late, that they couldn't save her, that ma mère... that she was an angel for real...” Tears spilled from his eyes, and Sam didn't hesitate for a heartbeat to pull him closer, kissing him so lightly it was almost like a ghost of her kisses.

“...Oh, Gabriel, love... I'm so sorry for that...”, she whispered, and it was the genuine pity in her voice, the genuine _pain_ in it, that had him speak on, biting back sobs that were desperate to leave him.

“S-so... bien... I'd taken her out to dinner, of course. I-if it weren't for me... elle vivrait encore... Her partner was kind enough not to blame me outright, a-and ma soeur et mon père aussi... mais j'l'ai vu, ses regardes... I could see it in their eyes. So I felt guilty, and... I let myself go. Took a week's leave from my job and just... stayed in bed. My sister pulled me through the motions of the day if I needed to be somewhere – elle était si... pratique. J'sais pas comment le dire d'autre, elle a eu pitié de moi. A-and... well, the day of the funeral, I... I attended, but I was a mess. Badly shaven, mismatched clothes-”

“Like a man that lost the earth from underneath his feet – your mom meant... the world to you...”, Sam guessed, and he nodded.

“Ma mère était toujours là, n'importe pourquoi j'avais besoin d'elle. She pulled me through the divorce by explainin' that sometimes it's best for people to break apart before they end up disliking each other. She pushed me an' Annabelle – c'est ma soeur – _hard_ to achieve the things we dreamt of: never give up studying for partying, don't give up too easily, don't bother what other people say or think... 'Soignez toi-même et le monde suivra'.”, he quoted her, grinning weakly before sighing. “I forgot that a little in the week between that hospital and that church. After the burial, everyone went to the gathering, but I... I couldn't. So I went to the first bar I found on the way and I... j'm'ai soûlé profondément, en l'espoir d'oublier. W-when I walked back to my room, in the dead quiet of the night... I passed a tattoo parlor and... and I decided that, since she's under my skin anyway, she might as well be _literally_ under my skin.” Slowly, he raised his right hand to his left arm and pulled down the bandana he kept tied around it, showing Sam the tattoo of his mother's tearful face. She ran a finger over the name softly and reverently, and she didn't touch the tattoo.

“...Oh, Gabriel... she looks so sad, and yet so... so purely good... It's no wonder you loved her so much, she looks like a strong, warm-hearted woman.”

“Elle est l'ange qui me garde là-haut.”, he admitted, smiling sadly before speaking on: “...With my arm burning, it was like all the grief just became _worse_ . I'd let her down, I'd let her go... and then I... I saw a piece of cardboard an' I lit it up with my lighter... and I just... I watched the fire and I became _fuckin' calm again_ . Like... when I was only little, and me, mom and Annabelle had just moved to Vancouver, we had a fireplace in our home that I liked to sit before whenever life felt hard. It was like my problems became fuel to the fire then, going up in smoke. A-and it was the same back then, with that piece of cardboard in the night. ...The first fire of many. After that, it was... like the floodgates had been opened. I changed, slowly but surely. I started _yearning_ for those fires after a while, started wanting them throughout the day. Lost my job, moved back to Montreal just to... to _feel closer to her again..._ paid less attention to myself... Then, just a li'l after my twenty-fifth, I missed the second memorial service to my mother and my sister came to see me... and just a few days before that, I'd burnt my hands badly. She saw, she pieced two and two together – because, of course, my firestarting had become so regular that half of _Canada_ knew that there was a pyromaniac in Montreal – an' after that... she got me help. I got into a psychiatric hospital just outside Montreal, and for six months it went okay, but then... Well, I couldn't take it anymore. So on one of my free weekends, I took the bus, bought flowers – white lilies, les favos d'ma mère – to put on her grave and say goodbye... I even left my family a little message on a card in the flowers, saying 'je suis désolé'...”

“Gabriel, you... you ran, too?”, she asked, and he nodded.

“I ran to Chicago. The first flight I could get out of there. I thought it'd be okay, I thought I could manage the impulse... but I couldn't. My med supply ran out and I got worse again. Started small but then I ended up lighting a fire that consumed an abandoned shopping mall. They caught me fairly quickly... I have a twenty year sentence for arson that I'm serving out here, RED pulled strings and got me outta the Illinois State Penitentiary Facility for the Mentally Unstable after only six months – an' thank the goddamn Lord that they did, I was about to go off the deep end for real. _Really fuckin' fantastic place_ , that one – a pyro's _nightmare_ . No fire, no entertainment, no nothin'. Just meds and shrinks and... et d'la misère. I was so fuckin' glad when they offered me this job, I said to myself that nothing was gonna screw this up. ...Of course, that lasted until Lander, who introduced me to all of his favorite indulgences... Before him, I was actually... well, I was still dirty, an' I probably must've jerked off _nightly_ because it was fuckin' horrible living in close quarters with a few guys I wouldn't have minded bein' done by. Mostly Ron, our previous scout. We weren't that far apart in age... eh, bien, n'importe – you don't wanna hear about _him..._ ” He meant to speak on but found his lips suddenly incapacitated by Sam's, giving him a needful kiss that transmitted how sorrowful she was because of his sorrow: and he found his heart lifting just a little. Sam shared his grief for his dead mother, she mourned for the passing of the light that Marylise Dantan had been as well, and she felt upset because of the impact it had had on him, if nothing else.

“...Gabriel, tu n'étais pas coupable de ce qui s'est passé à ta mère, et tu étais incapable de arrêter ce qui s'est passé à toi-même. Mais avec moi, je pense que ... ensemble, nous pouvons être plus forts que la douleur et plus fort que ton pyromanie. Aussi longtemps que nous sommes ensemble, tu n'as pas à avoir peur, mon amour. Je ne te quitterai jamais et je n'abandonnerai jamais te soutenir.”, she said, leaning her forehead against his, causing him to sigh and nod.

“J'te jure, mon ange, la même chose. Aussi longtemps que nous sommes ensemble, t'dois jamais avoir peur – ceux qui te blessaient, j'les tue. Anyone that dares hurt ya is a dead man walkin'. I'd _die_ for ya, mon ange de feu.” He then looked her over. “...Donc, maintenant, tu sais. Tu sais tout ce que j'ai fait, tout mes péchérs-”

“Those weren't sins, Gabriel, they were _mistakes_ , mistakes from a grief-stricken man... as for me, that's a longer story...”, she admitted, and he looked at her fondly, seeing her eyes water again and kissing her gently before wiping the tears that had already spilled over the edges away in the same way.

“T'es sûre avec moi, mon ange... we've got time, we've got each other, and I wanna know _everything_ about ya. Good, bad, everything in between.” He hadn't ever been so open to anyone else, and when Sam returned that honesty, telling her own story of grief and anger and helplessness, the world seemed to not exist in favor of the cocoon of safety they were in.

 

“Sam, li'l lady, tha' was some _darn fine_ work out there t'day!” Looking around at the engineer as she walked back to the base, dirty and exhausted, Sam instantly felt her sense of satisfaction double.

“Well, I think Pierre isn't going to forget today lightly – his arse has _got_ to be bruised so badly he'll be sitting on a very plump cushion all week.” The RED spy had seemingly gotten orders to single her out and incapacitate her, which he'd tried in any and every shape that he could think of, but she'd been wise to it every time. “...Though I think I might need to have a word with him next weekend, he got a little, uh, _overly handsy_ when he was disguised as Gabriel.”

“Y'could tell Dante-”, Dell suggested, but Sam shook her head softly.

“Only if I want Pierre murdered or beaten up. No, I'll have a talk to him myself, then march him over to Gabriel to fess up – that way, I can plead his pity a little. I mean, Pierre must've only done that because he thought Gabriel would try and grope me in battle.” When Dell looked at her incredulously, she snorted and added: “ _He doesn't try and grope me in battle_ , Dell, he knows he'll get an earful from John if he neglects his duty even for a second. Out there, we're both all professional-”

“-yeah, until tha horn sounds. Sam, sistah, next time ya decide to spend ya lunch break with Gabe, mind tellin' me so I won't feel tha need to follow ya? I could'a done without seein' him nearly eat ya face off-”, Archie said loudly in front of them, his words ending with an abrupt yelp as Sam nudged him in the back with her flamethrower.

“Keep walking, Arch' – and I thought you knew better than to follow me if I ventured out on the battlefield during a ceasefire, you _know_ the only one I could be going to see is Gabriel.”

“Yeah, _now_ I do – hell, Dell, ya should'a heard her, whisperin' in fuckin' _French_ to Dante, it was _gross_ -” Again, the scout yelped as Sam nudged him in the back, a little less softly this time.

“ _Walk_ , Arch', before I fry your arse. ...And _don't_ go asking Arsène to translate for you, either. Doubt he'd survive knowing just what I promised Gabriel.”, she admitted with a cheeky grin, causing Dell to roll his eyes and Archie to groan emphatically. They arrived back at the base by then, walking inside quickly since they were the first to arrive. “...Dell, I'll see you back here in half an hour, okay? Those men are hungry and if we don't feed them by six-”

“Heck, ah know, all hell breaks loose.”, the engineer admitted with a grin before ducking into his room, leaving Sam and Archie to do the same. A soft groan escaped the pyro as she pushed off the heavy fireproof suit, revealing the slight soot stains and occasional spatter of blood on her T-shirt. Archie caught it and reacted quickly.

“...I dunno what ya complainin' about, Sam, half'a tha time my shirt looks _purple_ from the blood mixin' with the blue of the fabric! Sometimes, when ya use that axe ya love so much, ya got so much blood on ya suit that ya look like a mini-Dante!” The latter got Sam to chuckle softly, shaking her head.

“...Yeah, I do look like a smaller, cuter version of Gabriel at times.”

“ _Way_ cutah, Sam, sistah...”, Archie admitted before aiming his shoes at the cupboard opposite his bed. “Now, not that I mind ya standin' there when I strip down to my underwear, sistah, but ain't ya gotta showah? If Dell's gotta make dinnah alone, he's not gonna keep lovin' ya-” Sam snorted but took her shower supplies and hastily went down the hall, to the separate showers, where she quickly washed the soot out of her hair, marveling how the tips of it already brushed her shoulders ever so slightly if she tilted her head back. The hair transplants had been a _huge_ success, she mused, as well as all of the other surgeries she'd had. '...It's such a miracle how everything seems just like nothing happened... but, of course, _everything_ happened...', she caught herself thinking; her sigh was mostly sadness with just a hint of joy in it, because 'everything' included Gabriel, drama and affection and passion rolled up into one experience. The memory of her earlier promise to him came back to mind, too, causing her to blush and towel off all the more quickly so she could get started on dinner and get her mind off the subject until that night, when she'd promised she'd meet him outside on the deserted battlefield.

“...Ah, Sam, jus' in time!”, Dell said as she walked back to her room dressed in fresh underwear, her towel still wrapped tightly around her. The engineer had his own towel loosely wrapped around his shoulders, proudly displaying his slight pot-belly and his blueprint-pattern boxers. “Ah already had tuh tell Jane an' Yaro dinner's gonna be ready in an hour an' ask 'em tuh be patient with us – guess they's gittin' hungry...” The pyro snorted and motioned for herself.

“Yeah, well, if they think I'll cook for them looking like this... it might make _their_ day, but _I_ would have to knock some blood back into their _brains –_ not to mention Gabriel would murder every single one of you and he wouldn't even be wrong doing so. See you in five.”, she said, retreating back into her room to find Archie absent still – or already, she mused as she saw the pile of dirty laundry on the floor, which she picked up and put into their laundry basket with a shake of her head – which enabled her to pick out her clothes a little more calmly and with more care, and when she rejoined Dell four minutes later, she felt just a bit more relaxed about her evening. That lasted only about as long as the walk to the dining room did, however: all of the men were already sitting around inside, and as soon as she and the engineer entered, they instantly started assailing the both of them with questions about what they'd be having for dinner and how long it'd still take to prepare. In the end, Sam whistled sharply on her fingers, quieting the noise the men were making, and spoke up loudly: “Dinner is pasta with tomato cream sauce and it'll only take half an hour to make at most, so _calm yourselves_ and _let us cook_!”

“Yeah, fellahs, y'all gotta have a li'l more patience...”, Dell added disapprovingly before walking into the kitchen after her, grinning as soon as he was sure the others couldn't catch the look. “...Pack'a rabid wolves, huh?”

“ _Worse_. The way they're itching for dinner, you'd almost think they didn't eat lunch at all...” However, right after Sam set the huge soup casserole with the pasta on the stove to boil, her cellphone rang and she groaned. “...Dell, keep an eye on things for a second?” The caller ID showed her brother's name, and that in itself was enough to have her briskly walk outside while answering. “Wait, hold on... You guys, I'll be right back, but Dell's holding the fort – just keep stirring the sauce!”, she said loudly, pressing the phone to her shoulder as she shouted, and the engineer's grin was apparent in his answer.

“Will do!” Sam walked outside, only to remember her promise to her brother a month and a half prior, causing her to quickly poke her head back inside the dining room.

“Uh, does anyone know when the visitor's day is held?”

“Sa-tar-dae three weeks from now, Sam, lasseh...”, Tavish said, uncharacteristically morose, and the pyro reacted in kind, nodding gravely before disappearing outside again.

“Hello, Damien – I take it you're calling about the visitor's day? It's the twenty-sixth – that's a Saturday.”

“ _Well, that's only one of the many reasons I've called, Sam. I got a few telephone calls earlier this week. Apparently some people from the company that organized the New Year's Rave in Melbourne last year needed your new coordinates to send you a little thank-you gift-”_

“Yeah, I've gotten their gift, it was a case of JumpStart – that's the energy drink that sponsored the Rave... but I swear that stuff is like battery acid mixed with concentrated coffee bean juice and ground chilli pepper! I can only drink a sip per day.” She snorted when she considered the twenty-three cans of it that still stood in the fridge in the kitchen. “Maybe share them with Gabriel, see what...”, she started muttering, and of course Damien was quick to pick up on that.

“ _Do not finish that sentence – if it contains mention of your colleague, I dread to think what it would be about. Though it is nice to know you two are talking again.”_

“Well, we certainly are _talking_ again.”, Sam admitted shyly – Damien cleared his throat on the other end carefully and then spoke up in a delicate tone of voice which betrayed how well he'd interpreted what she hadn't mentioned out loud.

“ _I won't ask. ...Anyway, one of the people I got to talk to mentioned some quite, uh, interesting things that might have happened at that party. Apart from your boss, you apparently got_ very _intimately acquainted with one or two of the VIPs. And they mentioned a video tape-”_

“They what?! Y-you didn't...”, she started, and Damien snorted.

“ _I didn't ask them to send me a copy, no, but they did so anyway and I'm afraid my image of you sustained some damage seeing what you did there.”_ If Sam had been blushing before, when thinking about Gabriel, that was clearly an overstatement – her cheeks now felt like they'd spontaneously combust any second.

“Oh my god, Damien, that's personal!”, she complained loudly, glaring at the door to make up for the fact that she couldn't glare at her brother in person. And to make matters worse, Damien's next words were spoken half-teasingly and half-sincerely.

“ _Yes, well, Sammy dearest, next time don't do the deed if you cannot face the facts afterwards. Besides, it was just some kissing and maybe a few hands disappearing places I'd rather not think about. You did look like you enjoyed every second of it. I... switched off the tape when your boss came into view, though.”_ , he added, his tone carefully guarded, and Sam sighed.

“Well, you know why I quit my job, Damien – that last part was a mistake, the first part was just... drinks, and loud music, and pure adrenalin from seeing my fireworks go off like a charm... Oh, but don't think you're off the hook just yet, I'm thinking of good ways to torture you into forgetting that information.”

“ _Yes, well, I got something nice out of it as well. The girl that you got all handsy with on the tape, uh... I called her-”_

“Damien, how did you ever get her number?!”, Sam asked, nonplussed, and now her brother's words sounded _smug_ and his words were evident of his grin.

“ _...Well, let's just say I was persuasive and my usual charming self. But anyway, turns out that girl wasn't Australian but a representative of the American branch of JumpStart, so I asked if I could meet her and, well... we met up, we talked... I may or may not have ended up promising we could meet again, over dinner...”_

“You're kidding... so... you fell for the girl that you saw me making out with on a video of a rave party that starts with me saying – if I remember correctly, because with all that alcohol you never know – 'I'm _sooooooooooo drunk_ I think I'm gonna pass out any minute!' huh?”, she asked mirthfully, and Damien cleared his throat again, speaking an addition in a quiet, shy tone that didn't become him at all.

“ _...I dare say she didn't think of that at all, otherwise we would've never- A-anyway...”_ , he quickly said when he interpreted Sam's silence correctly as the pyro loading up a _barrage_ of new teasing remarks since he had just admitted to sleeping with this woman on his first date with her, _“…you shouldn't be the one talking, from what that video betrayed you clearly know your way around a female body with your hands.”_

“Yes, well, _being_ female helps – besides, you make it sound as if I actually had sex with her, and I'm certain I didn't. There was some measure of alcohol in the mix as well, and everyone knows alcohol makes you think you're Superman – or Wonder Woman, in my case. I can tell you that, apart from Jake, _nobody_ got further than a little more-than-light petting and kissing. But then again, that tends to happen with five Volcano Shots in your system – the JumpStart mixed with gin? _Worse than drinking straight-up liquor,_ I swear, the sugar masks the bite of the alcohol and the caffeine makes sure you get drunk even _before_ you've drunk the shot. ...Anyway, glad to know you've met someone. I can wholeheartedly say I approve of her, otherwise I wouldn't have misbehaved with her, clearly.”

“ _So, then, how have_ you _been, Sam?”_ , Damien asked, and instantly Sam grinned.

“Oh, well, you know... the guys are good. No more trouble in _my_ life.”

“ _And your colleague, the six-foot charmer that you were going to talk to three weeks ago?”_ , he questioned, causing Sam to chuckle.

“...Are you sure your image of me can take another dent? Because once I answer that question, you'll never be able to delete the knowledge from your mind...”, she asked, and from the other side came an emphatic, overly-dramatic groan before her brother spoke up again.

“ _I guess I'll just have to deal. So, tell me.”_

“Well, Gabriel's been in my bed more than out of it in the past three weeks – but not just... I mean, we're friends and we've confessed to each other that we want a relationship, but he hasn't exactly had a good track record with being exclusive in the past and I'm still unsure whether a relationship is a good idea at the moment. But we're taking it day by day.”

“ _Night by night, most likely... oh well, at least there won't be any more 'accidents' with tranquilizers... So, I have to go now – I'm meeting Katrin at eight for a late night movie-”_

“Needless to say I don't have to call _your_ number any time tonight.”, Sam reacted softly, and her brother didn't deign to reply, leaving her to sigh and continue: “See you the twenty-sixth – bring Katrin, too, why don't you? Bet _that_ won't be awkward”

“ _Of course I'll bring her – I've got to introduce you, don't I?”_ , he said, and suddenly Sam hesitated.

“...Oh, Damien... it's _serious_ with her, isn't it?”

“ _What kind of question is that supposed to be, Sammy? I'm thirty-one, I don't have time for flings anymore-”_ Sam couldn't help it, she sniffed: tears had instantly entered her eyes at the thought of her brother finding someone to share his life with. _“...Are you crying?”_ , Damien asked, sounding surprised, and she nodded before speaking her confirmation.

“Of course I'm crying, you big _ostrich_ , it isn't every day your oldest brother tells you he's serious about someone! I'm happy for you, really – now, if she's just as serious...”

“ _I don't think she is anything but serious, she said so herself. She doesn't bother finishing a dinner with someone that isn't remotely interesting and interested for a long-term commitment. And in light of our date, she's conveniently forgotten all about the Melbourne thing with you, isn't that funny? ...So I'll introduce you to Katrin and you'll introduce me to your colleagues. Starting with this Gabriel of yours. I think I might need to have a little man-to-man talk to him, see whether his intentions are as pure as the rest of him seems to be dirty.”_

“I promise and solemnly swear, Dami, you'll get introduced to everyone, and their wives if any – not all of the men are married, but most of them are and they'll probably invite their wives and kids over. ...Want to know something odd? I have suddenly forgotten about me getting all handsy with the woman of your dreams, isn't that funny? Maybe you can forget about it as well by deleting that tape, huh?” His dry chuckle showed her that her suggestion was gladly accepted, and they said their goodbyes softly, after which Sam walked back into the dining room to find all men look away the moment she entered. Mentally, she chuckled and rolled her eyes, since it was overtly clear that they'd been eavesdropping – even Dell, who at least looked like he knew he'd made a mistake. The sauce had a hint of burnt onion taste in it when she stirred it, and she added the cream with a knowing look before asking him the question he was expecting almost sweetly.  “...Distracted, Dell?”

“Me? N-naw, Sam, li'l lady... Uh, so how was the homefront?”, he asked, and she sighed happily.

“Actually, very good. Not only is my brother coming to the visitor's day, he's bringing his new girlfriend. He told me he thinks she might be that one woman... if you know what I mean...”, she said, and the engineer chuckled, nodding.

“I know what you mean pretty darn well, Sam – I had that same feelin' one day 'bout the lady of my life, an' next thing ya know, there's weddin' bells a-ringin' and yeh feel like gold. And I still feel like that ev'ry time I go home ta see her...” He got a distant, dreamy look in his eyes that suited him somehow, Sam found, causing her to smile even more broadly.

“She sounds like a very remarkable woman to make someone as down-to-earth as you stare into space like a teenager in love. Is she coming to the visitor's day?” The engineer nodded eagerly, blushing just a little as Sam had clearly caught him mid-daydream, and she looked quickly at the colander she'd just poured the boiling water into, shaking the pasta dry as the man replied to her.

“Yup, she sure is! That's one a' tha things I love so much 'bout her: no matter how many times she's been here already, she still wants ta come every year... I'll introduce yeh to her, yew'll love her. She's really sweet, y'know... An' our young'uns, they're angels... Li'l Sam – 's short fer Samuel – an' Jenny, yeh'll adore 'em.” He then grabbed some grated cheese from the fridge and put it in a bowl. “Now let's get goin', those men ain't gettin' fed by our talk...”

“Yeah, get out here an' feed tha hungry - _finally_!”, Archie called, and the pyro rolled her eyes before picking up the bowl with pasta and waltzing into the dining room.

 


	19. Please remind me who I really am

He had only been gone for three seconds, just three blinks of an eye really, ducking behind the corner to pick up the pack of flares he'd spotted which would give him three more shots with his Detonator: but when he came back to the point he'd been so painstakingly defending, he spotted Sam and Dell standing on the other side, a level three sentry deployed and scanning the surroundings and a dispenser releasing medigas tinged slightly blue for ease of recognition.

“Stay over there, Gabriel, you can't win from a sentry _and_ from my Backburner!”, Sam said, and Gabriel feebly loaded his Detonator with the new flares, firing one at the engineer, knowing in advance it wouldn't do any real damage, not with the medigas healing him. He groaned again, lifting his mask to shout at his fellow pyro and the BLU engineer.

“I've got patience, Sammy, I can wait here all day if I gotta!”

“Yeh're gonna be waitin' a whole lot t'day, son...”, Dell reacted, and Gabriel found himself grinning.

“You've got _no idea_ , Dell. ...Sammy, this is gonna get boring, wanna run to the next point and do a little fightin'? I promise I'll finish ya off quickly...”, he said, and she chuckled, winking at him.

“What if I say I don't mind it being slow and strenuous?” Ignoring the feeble groan from the engineer, Gabriel found himself licking his lips and answering in kind.

“Then I'd tell ya you weren't gonna get any mercy at all. Promise to _beg_ and-”

“ _Sam, Gabriel, fer the love'a gawd!_ ”, Dell said loudly, and both pyros laughed – Sam was the only one that apologized, though, since Gabriel didn't much like the thought of getting blown to bits again. Whenever one of them had been scattered by an explosion, respawn took ten seconds longer to piece you together, and he got the feeling that anything that was hard on the machine was risky, so he tended to avoid rockets as best as he could. 'Next thing ya know, I'm missin' parts of me, parts that Sam an' I kind of need...', he thought with a small shudder, looking over at Sam to see her talk to Dell animatedly about something: their voices were too soft, so he couldn't understand anything, which led him to believe they were discussing tactics or pretending to in an attempt to lure him closer. Their furtive looks at him could mean either option, so he chose safety over the opportunity to overhear. However, just when he meant to shout at them again in an attempt to get them to give up their position, he heard a whisper from the hallway he'd just ducked out of.

“Herr Dantan... herr Dantan, if you can hear me, sigh...” He blinked but did so, hiding his surprise by looking down at his feet. “...Zhere iz a sentry zhere, ja?”

“...Yeah...”, he ground out, rubbing a hand over his face to hide the movement of his lips from Sam and Dell. “Level three, dispenser too.”

“Who iz zhere wizh herr Conagher?”

“Sammy.”, he said, not bothering to hide anything then – the pyro hadn't noticed, and the engineer was too focused on his dispenser, sifting through the various ammunition poking out at the bottom.

“No one elszh... sehr gut... Zhe plan is zhis, herr Dantan: ve – zhat iz to zay, you and I – vill charge as soon as Fräulein Tennant is going away. John, Pierre, Villiam und Radovan are already waiting by zhe last point, und Grant, Graeme und Chris haff our point covered. ...Klar?”

“Oh, yeah – crystal clear...”, he said, sagging against the wall in such a way that he could dash off at a second's notice. “...Want me to get Sam runnin' off?”, he asked, and the medic sighed, indicating that the question was superfluous. Grinning, Gabriel put one hand against the wall and pulled his mask halfway down over his face again: he could still speak without the mask but he wouldn't have to hesitate long to pull it back over his mouth for the assault. “Bien... Sam, j't'avise de courir et d'courir vite... Radovan renvoya cinq de votre équipe de retour tout à l'heure et la machine a du mal à les tous recracher de nouveau.” The pyro blanked, looking around – Dell seemed confused as well, but then Gabriel added: “Seriously, ya need me to make a fuckin' _drawing_? Your last point's layin' wide open!”

“Go, ah kin handle 'im!”, Dell said, oblivious to the glimmer of medigas that cast a pinkish haze around Gabriel's body, sizeable though it was. However, no sooner had Sam disappeared, or Gabriel advanced, doctor Hartmann right at his heels – he didn't hear the flick of the switch on the man's medigun or the rattling roar as the Übercharge deployed, but he _felt_ it. And Dell couldn't possibly mistake the sudden bright red glow that consumed the pyro and the medic behind him. “ _Aw sheeyiiiit!”_ , he exclaimed as his sentry roared to life, spitting out ammunition and rockets fast; Gabriel didn't even feel their impact.

“HHHHMMMM PHHHHHMMMTHHPHRRRRRRPHHHHHHH, KHHHHHHHMMMMHHHHRRRRTHH!!”, he exclaimed triumphantly, his flamethrower burning the metal until the already-overheated guns and rocketlauncher gave out and exploded, after which he turned on Dell. The poor engineer stood no chance against him, not the way he'd been outwitted: his shotgun barely made Gabriel blink when the hail hit, even at point-blank range where it'd usually cost him a _lot_ of blood and perhaps even an arm or a leg. Taking his Axtinguisher, he cleaved the engineer, his swing fierce enough to make sure his axe got embedded until the man's hipbone, after which Gabriel had to kick his still-dying form off his weapon as the rush of energy left him slowly. Nevertheless, the sounds of battle on the background were a nice chorus for the metallic shrieks and the alarming bleeps of machinery as he took his axe to Dell's dispenser, causing it to fall with about five strikes, the metal dented and the medigas draining in a big blue puff from the nozzle he'd hit off.

“...Zhat was... effizient...”, doctor Hartmann admitted, relaxing a little, but Gabriel didn't: he heard footsteps approach, and familiar footsteps at that.

“Khhhphrrrmmm, hmmm hmmmrrrr, phhrrrrrr hrrrr hmmm?!” Of _course_ it had to be Sam, and of _course_ she was annoyed at having been tricked by him. Groaning, he readied his flamethrower again, hoping beyond hope that his attack of the sentry hadn't completely depleted his gasoline. “Thrrrrr hmmm-” However, she was interrupted by the sound of the horn, dropping her flamethrower and taking off her mask. “...Okay, yeah, I'm a survivor and I'm supposed to let you take a shot, so let me have it...”, she said, and Gabriel turned to the medic, shaking his head and motioning for the man to run to the rest of the team, which he did with a heavy and exasperated sigh. Though, Gabriel supposed as he walked up to Sam, his own flamethrower laying on the ground as well, the man could've also stayed, or _taken the shot_. Lifting his mask off, he grinned down at his fellow pyro.

“...No, I think I have somethin' to make up for. It was a low trick, convincing you that the rest of your team was incapacitated...”

“Not really.”, she said, smiling at him. “I would've done the same, you know. It was a very good strategy. ...Uh, Gabriel...”, she said suddenly when he pulled her along to the side, sounding a little taken aback – though she grinned much the same as he did when she realized where he pulled her to. “...W-we're in between battles...”

“Yeah, and I happened to notice you didn't instantly run back to your team. Hard to let a good opportunity go to waste.”, he admitted, pulling up the rolling shutter of one of the smaller respawn rooms that was rarely used.

“It's not even lunchtime yet, Gabriel...”, Sam protested feebly, though she did fidget with the belts at the front of his suit, causing the RED pyro to grin and slowly unzip hers, pushing it from her shoulders.

“Yeah, well, what can I say? This day's just takin' fuckin' _forever_ and I'm _not patient_ and you were teasin' me before...”

“Well, I'm still not sorry.”, Sam admitted, pulling her mask off and dropping it to the ground before sighing as he finally pushed her suit all the way off and let his hands disappear underneath her short-sleeved shirt; when she did the same to him, impatiently pulling the hem of his sleeveless shirt up, he grinned outwardly and cheered inwardly. “Oh, _Gabriel_ , you're insatiable...”

“Mmhmm... and so are you, mon ange, or d'you mean you weren't all hot and bothered before when ya teased me?”, he whispered, his lips pressed against the soft skin of her neck, causing her to shiver and pull him up for a kiss that answered his question better than any verbal reply could ever manage. All in all, he thought as he set to work quickly disrobing her, he had to be the luckiest man on the planet: the most ardent woman in the world was coming undone under his touch and clearly yearning for each of his kisses, and who else could claim that? Who else could ever have paradise the way they found it each and every day?

 

“...I ain't talkin' to ya.” Archie crossed his arms instantly when Sam entered their room that night, ostensibly looking away and causing the pyro to sigh.

“...I'm sorry, Archie... But you know me, I can't say 'no' to Gabriel at all-”

“I ain't talkin' to ya, Sam.”, the scout repeated, turning his entire body away: Sam groaned and sat down on her bed. He had reason not to talk to her, just like the rest of the team had had when battle started again and she and Gabriel were still missing in action, but the others had quickly forgiven her when she'd pushed the advance from the moment she'd been back, gas mask in place hiding a thoroughly blushing face and – something she'd noticed when she'd gotten back to her room to put her gear away – with her suit hiding the fact that she had on Gabriel's track pants, which fell around her feet.

“Come on, Archie, it isn't like you don't throw caution to the wind as well when you're-”

“Yeah, but nevah in battle, Sam!”, the scout reacted acidly, causing Sam to roll her eyes and walk over to Archie, standing in front of the wall he was staring at so intently; when he looked away, she stepped along, following his gaze until he gave up and glared at her.

“You're not mad at me for disobeying orders because Jane's our soldier, not you; you're not mad at me because it's Gabriel, because you haven't been angry before; so it has to be that you're mad because you caught us in the act-”

“Whah?! N-no, that's not why! I... I jus' am pissed off 'cause ya gotta learn to _think_ an' see when an' where's the proper time an' place for... for shit like that!”, Archie stammered, growing progressively more red in the face until he looked like he'd faint any time due to a lack of blood still circulating his system. What was more, it was the exact same thing Dell had said, and the engineer had readily given up his protests when Sam had admitted that she'd known it was wrong but that Gabriel had been persuasive. Grinning softly, Sam patted the completely winded scout on his shoulder amically.

“It _is_ because you caught me and Gabriel in a rather compromising position, Archie, and I'm sorry that you were the one that was sent to come look for me. Is there any way I can make it up to you?”, she asked gently, and the scout snorted.

“Yeah – _don't go there again._ None of tha othas care what you 'n Dante get up to outta battle, but when we fight, ya gotta have ya mind on _that_ and not on _him_.”

“My mind wasn't on him until we got to that disused respawn room, Arch', but okay, I promise I'll say 'no' next time.” She didn't add the rest of her thought – 'but Gabriel might not listen' – and Archie seemed to guess it as well, because he voiced it.

“Yeah, if Dante even listens...” However, it had the effect of relaxing him again, causing him to muster a smile again and look at Sam with only a light blush. “...Okay, yeah, I know it's hard sayin' no ta him – well, for _you_ it is, the rest of us ain't got that problem – so I guess I can forgive ya, sistah. ...Ya gonna see him again tonight at RED side?”, he asked when he saw her fold Gabriel's track pants with careful deliberation, causing Sam to smile and shake her head.

“No. ...Well, not at RED side, at any rate. We, uh... don't want to disturb the rest of you as much, so we usually go to that respawn room where you found us.”, she admitted with a shy blush, causing Archie to snort again.

“Ya just don't like that ya gotta be quiet when he brings ya over to RED side, an' that _he_ 's gotta be quiet when he comes over to _our_ side. Which you both suck at, to be honest.”, he said: Sam blushed but managed to still react indignantly, feeling like the scout wasn't properly appreciating the effort she and Gabriel put into keeping both teams relatively okay with their relationship.

“I'll have you know we do everything we can think of to keep the rest of you from waking up when we sleep together in his room or ours! I nearly suffocated on that pillow last weekend, and Gabriel nearly chewed through the sheets when-”

“Awright, awright, I didn't wanna know!”, Archie said, sounding and looking shocked, and Sam was the one that scoffed this time.

“If you don't want the answers, don't provoke them. ...Oh, for god's sake, I need a drink. Something cool and refreshing.”

“Ya got that JumpStart crap-”, Archie instantly suggested, prompting Sam to shake her head vehemently. She planned on taking a can of it with her to the respawn room, intent on seeing what Gabriel thought of the energy drink, but if she drank it before she headed over there, she ran the risk of being jittery enough to cause accidents.

“...No, I'm only drinking that when I want to die of a heart attack, or when you guys have your next party.”

“Yeah, that'd probably be nevah. Parties ain't somethin' we do here.”, the scout said with a somewhat forlorn sigh, motioning for his laptop again. “Anyway, I'm gonna waste some more time on Army of Death 4 – be careful out there, an' tell Dante he's gotta stop thinkin' he can do ya whenever he fuckin' wants to-” Sam waved off his words rather than protest that she didn't mind that her lover thought that, figuring the scout's brittle peace with her wouldn't be able to stand her voicing that thought. Picking up Gabriel's track pants, she walked to the kitchen, where she found Dell taking deep gulps of orange juice right from the carton: as soon as he noticed her, he stopped and apologetically shook the empty carton.

“Heya, li'l lady... uh, 'm sorry if'n yeh were 'spectin' fruit juice, 's all gone... ah were thirsty.”

“That's okay... well, it _was_ a hot day today.”, she admitted, smiling when Dell chuckled.

“Hot? Now, tha''s an understatement, Sam, pardner – last time ah saw tha' many shirtless men were back in Texas, in mah student years. Fer a second, ah thought even _yew_ thought 'bout walkin' around with'cher shirt off.”, he said, and Sam rolled her eyes.

“Yes, well, no – not unless I wanted eight men to die twice over, first from a stroke and then at the hands of Gabriel, he gets possessive when it comes to me.” She looked over the refrigerator and picked up a bottle of lemonade, taking a small sip before drinking liberally from it. Her one experience with Archie's ready-made cocktail mix made sure she checked each bottle for alcohol before drinking more than a sip's worth. “...Dell, I'm sorry about earlier-”

“'s awright, Sam, jus' tell Gabriel he's gotta learn t'keep his hands off'a yeh when yeh've still got battles t'fight. Yew got a good head on 'em shoulders...”

“Well, that good head of mine took a little leave of absence earlier, I'm sad to say, because Gabriel wasn't the only one putting his hands where they weren't supposed to go in between battles... but thanks for not shouting at me outright.”, she admitted, smiling broadly when the engineer blushed and patted her on the shoulder almost fatherly. “...Oh, that's refreshing...”, she said after another sip from the lemonade, looking Dell over again. The engineer had his shirt unbuttoned, showing off his bare chest, and even then he still had sweatstains under his arms and on the back. “...Is there a restriction for fighting on hot days?”, she asked, and the engineer shrugged.

“Not really. We git longer breaks, though. Like the one yew an' Dante so gratefully used t'gitcher some-”

“ _Dell_ , please don't ever use that expression again. It sounds wrong coming from you.”, Sam said, rolling her eyes. “...Well, maybe we ought to have a barbecue if the weather stays this warm.”

“Hell, that ain't no bad idea!”, Dell said, smiling – that smile turned into a grin when Sam spoke on.

“...Well, and why not a little refreshing fun while we're at it? I mean, we have to run around in full gear under that burning sun, so... so why not do the same this weekend in swim gear? Have a waterbattle?” Looking at her grinning colleague, she couldn't help but grin as well as she teasingly added: “...unless you're all _way too serious_ to consider having a little fun.”

“Sam, ah'm thinkin', if _yew_ turn up in swimgear, y'could git half'a the town eager tuh join in.”, the engineer admitted, and Sam blushed, shaking her head.

“I... Nooo... Dell, don't _say things like that_! You're like-” However, the thought of the words she'd been about to speak was what stopped those same words from being spoken. It was true that Dell was like a father to her – old, wise, caring, kind-hearted, strong and somewhat protective – but the sudden pang of pain for missing her own father, who now sat halfway around the world, probably blaming her for Michael's death... Her smile faltered, and Dell seemed to guess what thought had entered her mind if his sudden reassuring pat on her shoulder was any indication.

“...Ah know, Sam, li'l lady – an' yeh're like mah own, too. Could'a _been_ mah own, if'n ah hadn't started at age forty. ...Ah know, an' ah'm flattered. ...Yer idea ain't half bad. Ah'll ask Grant if'n he thinks RED's interested an' then yew, me, an' him-”

“And Gabriel.”, Sam quickly said, adding when Dell raised an eyebrow in mingled surprise and suspicion: “Gabriel's very tech-savvy and intelligent, Dell, don't sell him short because he has a reputation. ...Okay, well, I'll leave you to arrange when we can meet up with Grant for discussing that. Probably not this weekend though, huh?”, she said, and Dell rolled his eyes.

“...Well, naw – 's Thursday now, so... Prob'ly we'll meet up this weekend tuh discuss it an' buy what we need.” He then motioned for Gabriel's track pants, which still lay folded on the kitchen countertop. “...Yew goin' tuh exchange POWs with Dante, huh?”

“Uh, for the sake of everyone's sanity, I suppose 'yes, indeed' is the best answer.”, Sam admitted mildly, grinning when Dell sighed and shook his head. “...My own shorts must've looked _ridiculous_ on him, though.”, she added, picking up the faded track pants and walking out of the kitchen briskly, her mind suddenly focused on Gabriel and how he'd be waiting impatiently for her in the respawn room.

 

“...We should get a goddamn dishwasher in here.”, Gabriel grumbled. It was Friday, and he was expecting Sam to come over to his side of the base, but Grant had been adamant: he wasn't even supposed to head to the door before the dishes were washed and put away. “Hell, I'd fund the fuckin' thing myself. Merde, la vaisselle foutu...”

“Cussin' in French ain't gonna help yeh, Gabe, son.”, the engineer reacted from the dining room table, where he was sitting to make sure Gabriel did his duty to his team just as he'd proposed when he'd returned well after battle had begun again the previous day – 'le connard, he's probably eatin' this up...', the pyro mused, picking up another plate and washing it, pouring all his spite into vigor to make sure he at least did a proper job without breaking any plates. “Yeh gotta learn t'leave Sam alone durin' battles – if'n y'ain't gon' learn the easy way, it's gonna be the hard way.”, Grant added after a second, and Gabriel grumbled in reply just loud enough for the others to hear.

“Stupid fuckin' egghead with five fuckin' PhD's-”

“Six, an' five more master's degrees, son; an' don't yeh forget who should'a picked up the phone an' complained to th'Administrator-General-” The latter mention had Gabriel quickly reply, his voice showing his fear far better than he wanted.

“Bien, bien, ouais, j't'dois remercier pour ça... but these fuckin' dishes are trying my goddamn patience, an' Sam's gonna be here any second-” As if wanting to add to his discomfort, his cellphone bleeped to show Sam had sent him a message, probably to alert him that she was done with her chores; groaning, Gabriel put the plate down and meant to check his message when Grant's surprised voice sounded from the dining room.

“...Wait, how'd yeh-”

“That's my secret, Grant. ...Gabriel, t'es là?” Sam's voice sounded from right outside the doorway, and Gabriel very nearly dropped the dishtowel in the soapy water.

“Y-yeah, how did you...”, he started, and Sam chuckled softly.

“I'll tell you later – when there's less nosy people around. But I _can_ tell you, Grant, that it didn't involve breaking in. I got in here by legitimate means. ...Gabriel, still got a lot of work?”, she asked, causing him to snort.

“I spent half an hour washing five pots, three pans, nine sets of eatware, nine plates, fifteen glasses – don't ask...”, he said pre-emptively, glaring at each of the glasses in turn. “...Grant thinks makin' me do the goddamn dishes all by myself will teach me to keep my hands off ya during battle.”

“Oh, good luck there, Grant, you'd need to lobotomize Gabriel in order to achieve that, I think.”, Sam admitted, grinning broadly. The RED engineer gave a feeble answer that Gabriel didn't make out, but Sam's laughter sounded next and she clearly walked over to Grant, patting him on the back before speaking out again: “...He wasn't alone, so perhaps it's not fair if he suffers alone? Allow me...” Her footsteps neared the door again, and she walked in looking picture perfect as she always did to him, smelling of perfume and looking more delectable than any dessert could ever be to him ever again. “Want a little help?”, she asked, looking in the kitchen cupboard which contained the dishtowels, causing him to understand that even the contents of the drawers were symmetrical between her side and his, and taking one to be able to assist him. “...Oh, you're mostly done already!”, she said, smiling generously his way – he could only grin back, feeling overjoyed at her presence and at the way she instantly dug her hands into the foamy, soapy water to be able to help him. 'Help me and spend time with me at the same time...', he mused as she casually leaned against him while stacking the plate she'd just dried on top of the others overhead.

“...Ah, Sammy...”, he sighed contentedly, causing her to blow him a kiss and Grant to poke his head around the corner.

“Y'all ain't gittin' distracted, now, are yeh?”

“Fous l'camp, le vieux, I don't have the patience to deal with ya right now!”, Gabriel instantly flared up. He _hated_ being checked up on, more so because it was due to Sam that the engineer was being suspicious: when it came to Sam, he had no defenses, no ways of denying himself or her. When it came to Sam, he would jump in front of Radovan's minigun in a heartbeat, or risk being kicked off the team permanently, just to see her smile. “...Merde, I'm fuckin' ordering a goddamn dishwasher-”

“Gabe, son, y'ain't gonna git me tuh stop complainin' 'bout yew an' Sam by buyin' a dishwasher – it ain't the fact that ah got yeh washin' dishes, but the fact yeh should know better.” Gabriel meant to respond to that in very choice, very _colorful_ words, but Sam beat him to it: her voice was soft and somewhat soothing as she spoke up while drying off another fistful of cutlery.

“Now, Grant, that's just being unkind to Gabriel, he didn't punch one of you guys, all he did was... have a temporary lapse of judgment... Nobody was in danger-”

“Yeah, but we were a pyro short, Sam, pardner.”, Grant said, which seemed to finally cause Sam to lose a little of her patience with the man. Dropping the dishtowel, she turned to face the engineer, towering over him slightly and blocking him from view almost completely the way she'd put her hands on her sides, flecks of foam that had persisted making small wet patches on her blouse.

“You see, I don't see why everyone's up in arms about that – Gabriel and I were both missing, so _both_ teams were down a pyro. There was no imbalance, which is just about the only reason I'd accept for being treated like we are now. If there had been an imbalance, then I would've understood, but this? Why is everyone constantly berating us for every little thing we do? And don't say 'this isn't little', because it _is_. We weren't misbehaving enough to justify being treated with such disdain.”

“W-well, it ain't _disdain_ , S'mantha-”, Grant tried, but Sam shook her head, and ever word she spoke made Gabriel's heart swell with pride about how fiery she was in defending him.

“It sure looks like it from my side, Grant. Every mistake Gabriel makes – and by association, every mistake _I_ make – gets looked at with through a magnifying lens, blowing it up out of proportion. What about Chris shooting Arsène and leaving him to die instead of finishing him off when the horn blew at the end of Monday morning's first battle? Did _he_ get extra chores? Did he even get reprimanded? What about Graeme, who was so drunk on Wednesday that Tavish had to carry him back to his bed? Did he get lectured on how he failed the team? Of course they didn't! And yet you treat Gabriel as you do, even though his sin is to be in love, something all of you have apparently forgotten. It's high time you stopped treating Gabriel like a criminal and started treating him like a valuable member of your team – because it may have escaped your attention, but he saved your arses yesterday. We were winning, and his moving ahead made sure you turned the tide in an instant. Dell gone, his sentry burnt to charred wreckage...” When Grant meant to interrupt, probably to give counterarguments, Sam cut him off with an impatient and somewhat impolite hand gesture that caused Gabriel to grin, allowing her to speak on more softly: “...I mean, I've heard Dell's arguments as to why Gabriel is treated the way he is: he is a criminal, he is an arsonist, he is a pyromaniac, he is promiscuous, he is addicted to alcohol... but I'll tell you what I've told Dell. Treat a man with no respect and you'll get no respect in return; treat a man with respect and you'll get respected in turn. Gabriel has proven himself ten – no, _twenty_ times over in the past nine years, and where anyone else would get praise, all he gets is punishment. Sure, he makes mistakes, and maybe his mistakes are more frequent than anyone else's, but he works his arse off trying to earn some measure of respect from you guys. It's hardly a wonder that all he sees the team as are lays and annoyances. Did he ever proposition you, Grant?”

“Uh-”, the engineer started, looking horrified – which was due to the fact that Gabriel had indeed propositioned him, Gabriel mused with a faint sigh – but Sam snorted.

“He respects you too much to want to sleep with you when he's not drunk out of his wits, and he trusts you enough to share his highs and his lows with you – and yet you insist on treating him like he's the worst sinner this side of the Pacific. It's shameful, bloody shameful, and I won't have it anymore. Gabriel, c'mon, you've got _my_ permission to ditch the dishes, I daresay you've been punished enough for being a fool in love. If anyone on your team thinks otherwise, they can come take it up with me tomorrow afternoon; and _woe be the man_ that tries to convince me and _fails_.”, she said loudly, grabbing Gabriel's hand and pulling him along. Grant just stood, looking dumbfounded and not managing to utter a single word even as Gabriel passed him and shrugged, genuinely feeling sorry for the engineer. The rest of the men that were in the living room, which meant Radovan and doctor Hartmann, also had an utterly stunned look as they passed them on their way to the hallway, but Sam merely stomped on and Gabriel had no choice but to follow her, soft though her grip on his hands was. However, when they arrived in his room, where Billy had left a note saying that he'd be staying over at BLU side to keep Archie company, Sam sighed and relaxed again, not letting go of his hand but looking a little shy as she realized she'd just basically told the entire RED team off. “...I... might need to apologize to Grant tomorrow-”, she started, but Gabriel shook his head, smiling at her as he led her to the bed, sitting the both of them down on the edge.

“No, don't apologize. Sammy, the things you said... nobody else said 'em before, and when you said it the way you did, all honesty and indignant rage... I've never thought the rest of the guys treated me badly but you're kinda right. Nobody else gets put down for what they do outside of battle, an' no matter how hard I fight, I never seem to get a break.” Looking into her eyes, he saw the genuine, deep affection and knew that he had found his angel, the angel he'd so frequently prayed for. It was such a deep, abiding sensation that he spoke without even realizing it at first: “...J'ai prié pour une ange comme toi tellement souvent, Sam, mais ce n'est qu'aujourd'hui que je me rends compte à quel point t'es vraiment une bénédiction. Je t'aime tellement, et j'vais plus jamais de ma vie te laisser aller. ...T'es mon ange de feu – my fiery, blazing-hot angel... and I don't mean that just in a dirty way, Sammy, you're the woman that put the spark back into my life.” He kissed her gently, reverently, not wanting to savor her just yet even though his body _itched_ for hers; making love to her was addictive, but kissing her was even more of a necessity. She sensed the tenderness of the moment as well and held back from pulling him closer, allowing him to relish the way only their lips were pressed together. After a few seconds, he pulled away slowly, looking at her to see her open her eyes lazily, with a broad smile.

“...Gabriel, I... love you too. You're not an angel by far, but you're everything I need you to be.”

“Ton ami? Ton confident? Ton nounours? Je sais que je suis ton amant, donc je n'ai pas à le demander... Ton pyromane... alors, quoi d'autre?”, Gabriel said softly, causing her to nod and kiss him again softly, though this time not as hesitantly tender as before – a kiss that had his heart burning like a bonfire and his blood turn to plasma in his veins, making his entire body heat up in a flash; when she spoke, her voice low and sensual, that heat turned unbearable.

“Mon seul amour, Gabriel, mon compagne de vie. Dois-je te vraiment le dire de nouveau?” He chuckled and winked at her, leaning against her, pulling her against him finally.

“Ah, me dis chaque jour que j'suis le seul dans ta vie et ton coeur, j'aime bien ça...”, he sighed, after which he kissed her deeply – ' _finally, finally_ ', he cheered mentally at her full, light, dizzying taste and the feel of her pressing against him so tightly no force on Earth and in Heaven could pry them apart anymore. They sat like that for the longest while, kissing and breaking apart for a few cleansing breaths and kissing again, until Sam groaned into the kiss and held on to him, making sure they didn't have to break apart as she moved to sit on his lap, where he automatically wrapped his arms around her back, his hands coming to settle on her behind. “...Et après, me dis que tu m'as besoin et que j'peux te faire l'amour toute la nuit, ce soit encore mieux...”, he admitted breathlessly after another deep, passionate kiss, to which Sam fortunately only answered by lifting his shirt off him.

 

“...Okay, so we agree on how we's gon' do it?”

“Oh, _for fuck's sake_ , Dell, ya asked that _three goddamn times_ already! Yeah, we agree!”

“Gabe, pardner, y'ain't gotta shout at me, ah jus' wan' be sure...” Listening to her lover and her own team's engineer bicker was the outline of Sam's entire Saturday afternoon, she'd found. Then again, she mused, looking at Grant who sat next to Dell and who looked at her furtively, there were worse things. Under cover of the others' argument, she gave the RED engineer a soft half-smile.

“...Grant, are you okay?”

“...” The man looked at her like she'd grown an extra head for a few seconds before sighing and nodding. “'m fine. Ah were jus' thinkin' about what yeh said yestehday.”

“Look, I... wasn't really kind towards you, I know-”, she started, intending to say that she was sorry but that she hadn't been lying or covering up Gabriel's misdeeds: however, Grant cut her off before she could continue, shaking his head.

“Naw, y'were right not tuh be, Sam, pardner. Me an' the others... ah guess – _we_ guess... yeh were right. We ain't really treated Gabe with 's much respect as we thought. Well, ah did treat 'im with respect, but not nearly 's much as he's due.” Vaguely, Sam was aware that Dell and Gabriel were listening in, but Grant seemed not to notice and she let him continue, figuring that her fellow pyro could use the mental boost and Dell should know what they were talking about as well. “The truth is, when Gabriel joined us, it were hard fer us t'overlook 'is pyromania – he started fires 'bout once or twice every week. An' then, about a year after he joined, Lander came on 's well an' he got _worse_. Now ah'm not sayin' Lander did him disservices by joinin' in on it, or teachin' him tuh drink an' fuck 'round, but ah'm still not sure he really helped 'im neither. ...An', well, guess it were easier tuh judge 'im than try an' understand 'im. But ah had a li'l talk tuh th'rest'a the team 'bout what yeh said this mornin', an'... well, we agreed we oughta cut 'm some more slack-”

“About fuckin' time.”, Gabriel reacted, causing Grant to nearly leap out of his chair from sheer shock; when he was calmed down again, he gave Gabriel a mild glare before sighing and shaking his head, speaking under Sam's auspicious gaze.

“...Yeah, well, y'ain't all wrong. But yew gotta understand, Gabe, son, with the perks come the responsibilities. No more screwin' around with Sam durin' battle. Yew two are already skippin' lunch, that oughta be enough. An' no more neglectin' yer chores-”

“If you're talking about last night, Grant, you know what I said.”, Sam intervened, causing the engineer to nod.

“Ah weren't talkin' about that, Sam, pardner – naw, Gabe had a li'l mishap last week on Wednesday, where he spent nearly an hour under the shower.” Rather than ask further, Sam nodded. The previous week, they hadn't found either scout prepared to spend one night at the engineer's room, and so they'd been forced to make do with their half-hour lunch break for three days in a row, which hadn't even managed to suffice on Wednesday which had meant that they had to quickly suit up again very dissatisfied. Gabriel's quick wink showed that he had guessed her thoughts.

“...Yeah, I'm not apologizin' for that. Donc, enough about me an' the shit I get up to in the shower when there's nobody else there – this barbecue and water battle, where were we?”

“...Do ah even gotta ask if'n yew two wanna take care'a the barbecue?”, Dell said, and Gabriel chuckled as Sam had expected.

“Well, no, but it's great that ya asked anyway. Yeah, we'll take care of the barbecue. _Oh goody_.”, he said with a broad, almost childishly-content smile on his face, and Sam couldn't help but smile as well. However, Dell and Grant exchanged somewhat dismayed looks.

“...Uh, Sam, mind us askin' yeh to stick with Gabriel fer this?”, Dell asked carefully, and while that seemed to cause her fellow pyro's temper to flare up again, she nodded calmly.

“I don't mind. But I'm confident Gabriel won't fire up anything but that barbecue, and you should be too, gentlemen.” She'd meant it as a gentle reminder that they needed to start trusting Gabriel and they interpreted it as such: Grant blushed softly and stammered something between a lengthy swear and a muted apology, and Dell merely sighed and nodded, muttering ''course'. “...Now, as for the meat, I take it we'll need to double our usual supply – since it'll be RED and BLU eating together as we always do on a Saturday. Uh, but if Gabriel and I take care of the food, then who can we ask to supply the drinks?”

“Ah'll ask Tav, yew ask Graeme?”, Dell suggested, and Grant nodded, causing Gabriel to snort softly but not speak his thoughts. Nevertheless, Sam could guess them just as accurately as if he'd shouted them. The demolition experts weren't really the men she'd ask for providing drinks for a barbecue, considering their obvious taste for hard liquor; then again, she mused, Dell and Grant probably knew the men a lot better than she and Gabriel did, so their reasons had to be sound even if she and her lover didn't know them.

“...Okay, that settles it then. But now, the waterbattle... Grant, Dell, any ideas how to make this doable?”, she asked, and the engineers pondered the question for a few seconds in silence. Grant was the first to speak up, scratching his auburn hair as he did so.

“Well, ah were thinkin' – 's just a thought... but what if'n we make it a 'capture th'intel' battle? Only instead'a them suitcases with papers, we make it a bucket with red an' blue water.” Gabriel instantly perked up at the idea, adding his own thoughts to his teammate's.

“Heh, yeah, that way, we can use buckets to fill a barrel or somethin', an' the first team to fill their barrel wins an' gets a prize!”

“Like what?”, Dell asked, causing Gabriel to shrug.

“Fuck if I know, but we'll think of somethin' worth it. ...Uh, quick question, 's everyone in on BLU side?”

“Gabe, son, if'n this 's about Chris' remark again...”, Grant said, and Sam blinked; catching her look of surprise, the engineer elaborated for her sake and Dell's: “...Yeah, so this mornin', when ah suggested th'idea of the waterbattle tuh th'rest'a the team, Gabriel were makin' the two'a yeh some pancakes. An' he jus' happened t'hear Chris say 'if Sam's goin' to wear a bikini, I wouldn't miss it'-”

“Can he still fight come Monday?”, Sam asked, and Grant sighed, probably startled at the ease with which Sam guessed that punches had been thrown.

“He's got a black eye an' he'll be walkin' funny fer a couple'a days – Gabe didn't knee 'im but he kicked 'im so hard the poor guy cried like a babe when he went ta th'men's room a few minutes later.”

“Il a eu d'la chance, il a encore obtenu son bite sur lui, ce connard australien, j'aurais pu lui tuer pour même penser à Sammy de cette façon. Fuckin' bastard... should've raped him with the barrel of his sniper gun threatening to pull the goddamn trigger...”, Gabriel said, causing Dell and Grant to look shocked and Sam to snort with laughter at the mental image of a terrified Chris being sodomized by an irate Gabriel in that way.

“Oh, believe me, I'm fairly sure Chris already shat bricks when you yelled at him – or didn't you yell at him?”, she asked, and Gabriel shrugged.

“May have raised my voice, ouais. ...Anyway, I ain't gonna black eyes on BLU side, I think Chris' nice shiner of one's gonna be warning enough. ...So who's gonna sit with the barrels to stop everyone from cheatin'?”, he asked, and Dell and Grant suddenly looked at each other and then at the RED pyro, evidently stunned by his remark. “...You didn't consider that the guys _could_ cheat, huh?”, he asked shrewdly, and Sam grinned broadly. That was exactly the reason why she'd insisted on having Gabriel join them. “...okay, so... voyons... donc je pense que la façon dont ils allaient tricher est en remplissant les barils avec de l'eau ordinaire... d'accord, alors nous colorons l'eau. Mais ce qui va les empêcher de tout de même remplir les barils avec de l'eau régulier? ..Ah, j'ai la solution, c'est tout simple!” He looked at Grant and Dell, who now looked a little apprehensive, Sam noticed – until the tall pyro spoke on, grinning all the way and promoting the same kind of grin in the two engineers. “Grant, Dell, you two are gonna be our judges. Grant is gonna oversee the BLU barrel an' Dell is gonna sit with the RED barrel-”

“Why ain't we sittin' with our own team?”, Grant asked, causing Dell to chuckle and roll his eyes.

“We ain't gonna cheat if'n we'll be sittin' with th'opposite team, Grant, buddy. ...Gabriel, pardner, that is one sound idea. Ah think we c'n all agree on tha'.”

“Yeah – and I'd like to add...”, Sam added, secretly running a hand over Gabriel's knee underneath the table as she spoke, “...that you'll also be the ones to top up our waterguns. I've, uh, taken the liberty of placing the order via Dell's computer. We've got four waterballoon launchers, eighteen small water pistols, a hundred waterballoons, six large waterguns, two mid-pressure spray guns for me and Gabriel – we are going to have _fun_ soaking everybody, mon amour – and two high-pressure high-precision liquid guns for Yaro and Radovan. Those are, uh, actually meant to be for industrial use, but I got my hands on them via Ebay. Oh, and they're supposed to be operated by two men, so Siegfried and doctor Hartmann need to assist and keep the guns pressurized-”

“Uh, Sammy, not that I wanna cut this meeting short, but... it's kind of time for ya to go to BLU side again an' shower if we still wanna buy ourselves some swimsuits before we're goin' for dinner...”, Gabriel muttered, and Sam checked her watch to see that it was indeed already two PM. Looking at Dell and Grant, she rose from her chair.

“I think we've got a good plan, I'll leave the rest of the details to you... Gabriel and I will make sure that everything's done for the barbecue, and we'll talk to Tavish and Graeme tomorrow to get them to spend their money on more than just whiskey – but right now, I have to steal Gabriel away, we've got dinner reservations and still a lot to do before then, so-”

“'Ey, don't yeh go... _people still gotta use tha' shower, y'hear?!_ ”, Grant called after them, but Sam shook her head as she walked briskly back to Gabriel's room.

“...C'mon, pick up your stuff, then we can go have that shower together...”, she said, smiling broadly – her lover's confused but eager look made her giggle softly, digging through her pockets to produce a key and wiggle it slowly in front of him. When his look of confusion only grew more bewildered, she laughed softly and motioned for him to lean down so she could whisper in his ear. “...I've got a secret that I'll show you, mon amour – a secret that'll allow us to shower together without even bothering anyone else...”

“Oh, well, in that case, lead the way, mon ange!”, Gabriel said, quickly picking up the items he'd need from his room and following her to the end of the corridor, where she unlocked the heavy door that led to the separate area where she showered. As soon as he saw, Gabriel's mouth appropriately dropped open. “...C'est donc pourquoi je n'arrêtais pas de t'entendre en chantant, et pourquoi il y avait le sentir de ton shampooing...”

“Yes... well, maybe we shouldn't be too loud, but at least in here we can enjoy each other without bothering anyone else.”, she admitted, blushing softly – a blush that only intensified when Gabriel grinned and nodded.

“Well, we _shouldn't_ be too loud, no, mais j'ai la nette impression que nous ne parvenions jamais à rester silencieux, pas quand je t'ai tout savonnée et près de moi...”

“I'll, uh, go get my stuff quickly.”, Sam said, nearly breaking the key in her sudden haste to get fresh clothes and shower supplies. Then again, she mused with a faint grin as she nearly bowled Yaroslav over in the hallway, Gabriel's mental image did seem promising.

 


	20. Where innocence is burned in flames

“…Gabriel, son?”  ’As if this Monday mornin’ couldn’t get any worse…’, the pyro thought with a mental groan when Grant sat down opposite him, already in full battle garb despite the fact that battle was still an hour away.  “…Did yew an’ Sam git all th’supplies we need?”

“Yeah, Grant.”, he answered dully.

“Did yeh find yerself some bathin’ suits?”

“Yeah, Grant.”

“Had a nice time this weekend with Sam?”, the engineer persisted, sounding a little apprehensive, which caused Gabriel to groan softly before answering.

“Yeah, Grant, mon ami.”  He’d spoken curtly, hoping that the other man would be able to sense that he wasn’t feeling in an approachable mood, but the engineer seemed hell-bent on provoking him.

“Didn’t git in much trouble when yeh dropped ‘er off-”

“ _Look_ , are ya goin’ somewhere with this fuckin’ Q-an’-A or are you just tryin’ to get excused from battle with a broken jaw?!”, he ground out, and finally Grant dropped the pretense.

“…We, uh – well, that’s t’say, the teams – had a li’l talk ‘bout yew an’ Sam an’ we figured tha’ the two’a yeh need t’focus on the battles more durin’ the weeks.  So she an’ you ain’t allowed t’go over tuh th’other side ‘tween Sunday night an’ Friday evenin’.”

“ _What?!_ ”, Gabriel exclaimed, rising from his chair so quickly it clattered to the ground – if there was anyone in the base that wasn’t awake yet, that wasn’t going to last for much longer, the pyro knew, not with the way his anger flared up instantly and irreversibly.  “You… _nobody_ 's got the right to keep me an' Sammy the fuck apart!!  We're fully focused on the battles all the fuckin' time while we fight!”

“Son, yew an’ her hook up multiple times a day, y’ain’t hidin’ tha’.  Not even when yeh use tha’ disused respawn room – yeah, ev’ryone knows ‘bout that.  Truth’a the matter is, Gabe, we’ve been coverin’ fer yeh.  Me, Billy, Dell an’ Archie from BLU…  we’ve been pickin’ up the slack for yew an’ Sam.”

“So fuckin’  _what_?! Are we supposed to be  _happy_ that you think you got the right to interfere in our goddamn lives?!  What Sammy an’ I do when we’re not battling is none of your fuckin’ business!”, Gabriel said, not expecting Grant to rise from his chair as well and shout right back at him; at five foot three, the Georgian wasn’t as imposing as him, but the threat he lacked in stature, he made up for in spades in his tone and posture.

“Yeah, but th’way yew achieve  _in_ battle  _is_ our fuckin’ business, Dawntahn, an’ neither yew nor Sammy did real good since yeh started this fuckin’ around business!  We’ve had it – either yeh shape up or yeh cut loose, an’ if’n yew two don’t take the trouble tuh do either, the rest’a us are gon’ fuckin’ do it for yeh!! Now eat yer gawd-damn breakfast an’ go suit up, yeh’re confined tuh quarters after each meal unless yeh’re with me or doc Hartmann – same goes for S’mantha, she ain’t allowed outta quarters unless there’s someone of her own team with ‘er.  An’ don’t yew git ideas ‘bout sneakin’ out tuh meet her after lights-out, neither – all’a the windows, on their side an’ ours, got an alarm on ‘em now.  Ah’ll  _know_ when yeh try an’ open one’a them.  We gotta put a stop tuh all’a this screwin’ ‘round… ‘s fuckin’ useless… ‘s makin’  _yew an’ S’mantha_ fuckin’  _useless_ …”, the engineer muttered as Gabriel could only stare at him, shocked and irate, his hunger all but gone.  When he seemed to hesitate too long for the engineer’s taste, the man put his chair back and pushed him down into it – a feat in its own right, since Grant didn’t even reach until his shoulders, Gabriel mused as he stared at the bowl of vanilla pudding.  “…y’ain’t eatin’ yer damn breakfast.”, Grant ground out, causing Gabriel to glare at him, transmitting his spite in a single look and hoping that the engineer felt like garbage on the inside.

“Yeah, funny that, I ain’t fuckin’ hungry anymore, asshole.”, the pyro said, nearly throwing his spoon back into the bowl, splattering the edges of it with the pudding.  He took a second to allow his anger to subside enough to allow him to speak again.  “…Where do you an’ every-fuckin’-one else even think you got the right to just  _do this_? You didn’t even fuckin’  _talk_ to us first!  An’ then you’re surprised if we’re angry?!  …Pfeh, ouais, tu vit dans un rêve si tu pensais qu’il serait allé de toute autre manière, crétin.”, he said in his native tongue, getting up from the chair and walking to the door.  Outside, he found Billy standing at the doorway looking pale: when he glared at the scout, his skin looked even more pasty white but he didn’t move until Gabriel moved.  “Merde, ne me suis pas ou je dois t’assommer.”

“Yeah, well, if I don’t follow ya, Grant’s gonna have my head, man, an’ I really like it where it is instead’a hangin’ off his wall.”, the scout said, rolling his eyes when Gabriel tried to outpace him to their room.  Once inside, he sighed and sat down on the bed, re-tying his cleats.  “…Look, I ain’t likin’ what they’re doin’ either – neither does Arch’, guy thinks it’s great that Sam an’ you are head-ovah-heels crazy for each otha, says she ain’t nevah been more relaxed an’ happy… same goes for you, man, ya ain’t even smiled half as much when ya were with me.  ’m Even kinda jealous of tha way she makes ya feel, man…”, the scout admitted; normally, Gabriel would chuckle at that, but now he felt angry and in emotional pain at the thought of only seeing Sam on the battlefield, in full gear, with no way of talking to her because they were expected to kill each other on sight.

“…Merde. Okay, you know what?”, he said, taking his cellphone and typing in a quick text message to Sam – ‘let’s not kill each other mon ange de feu as long as they keep us apart’ – sending it before Billy could even come over and see what he’d sent.  A second later, he got her reply, which simply read ‘ok miss you mon amour’ and caused him to grin as he deleted it the second he’d read it.  “Okay-”

“That was Sam, right?  What’re you an’ her up ta now, man?  Oh fuck, if Grant finds out I let ya text her-”

“Billy, no offense, but if ya had tried to take my phone away, ya wouldn’t be goin’ into battle now, ya hear?  You’d be in medbay all day, together with doc Hardass who’d have some serious piecin’ together to do-” A knock on the door preceded Grant’s voice, causing him to instantly be quiet.

“Fellers? Half an hour left – Gabriel, yeh’re first in tha’ there respawn room, y’hear?  An’ no funny business t’day or yeh’re gonna have some  _serious_ 'splainin' tuh do with th'Administrator-Gen'ral.”

“Yeah, yeah, Grant, fils de garce, j’sais bien, now get the fuck away from that door or I’m _really_ gonna have somethin’ to explain to her.  …Quoi est-ce que je ai fait pour mériter d’la telle merde?”, he groaned, and Billy patted him on the shoulder consolingly.

“Well, you an’ her are maybe a li’l over-the-top enthusiastic ‘bout sleepin’ togetha, but ya ain’t done nothin’ wrong, brotha… I feel ya pain, I really do – me an’ Archie were jus’ startin’ ta get used ta havin’ to sleep togetha all tha damn time-”, the scout added, but Gabriel already paid him no more heed, walking outside with his flamethrower firmly in his hands.

He felt tense during battle, but fortunately didn’t see Sam, not even when he ventured closer to Dell’s ‘nest’.  However, his performance in battle did improve a little, even to himself: he managed to deflect Jane’s rockets back to him twice, cleared an ambush laid by Tavish, killed Dell’s dispenser from the walkway below and managed to withstand heavy gunfire from the level two sentry long enough to give John and Billy a chance to kill the engineer and the machine he’d built as they were both focused on him.  In the end, as he walked back to the his room after dinner, he felt tired, slightly satisfied by his performance in battle, not as hungry as he usually felt because he hadn’t skipped lunch, and  _thoroughly disgruntled_ by the knowledge that he wouldn’t be able to sneak away out of the base without alerting the others.  Knowing Grant, he’d made the alarm foolproof – and though he knew his way around electronics a little better than the average man, he was dead certain that he wasn’t a match for the Georgian when it came to everything machine.

“…Ya’re bein’ quiet, Gabe.”, Billy said as the pyro walked to his bed to get changed, causing him to snort.

“I don’t got anything that needs sayin’, I’m still fuckin’ plannin’ on how best to  _murder_ all of you sorry assholes for keepin’ me and Sammy apart – the ‘getting away with it’ part’s kind of impossible.”

“H-hey, c’mon, don’t kid around ‘bout shit like that, man!”, Billy said loudly, groaning when Gabriel simply stripped completely and got under the covers.  “ _Seriously?!_ ”

“Hey, in case ya didn’t fuckin’ notice, my fuckin’ girlfriend’s on the other side of the damn base an’ there’s fuckin’  _alarms_ between me an’ her so yeah,  _excuse me_ for gettin’  _some_ relief – go sleep in  _Grant’s room_ if ya can’t stand the sight, Will.”  The scout looked torn between more protests and running out of the room before deciding on the latter: grabbing his pyjamas and a change of underwear, decidedly keeping his eyes off Gabriel, he dashed from the room, causing Gabriel to finally let the sigh he’d held back go and slowly, leisurely, stroke himself, seeing the plethora of images of Sam indulging in him play out in front of his mind’s eye again.  How she’d looked when she sat on his lap, an inch from release… or how she’d cried out his name when he’d had her in that respawn room the very first time, on her hands and knees… or – the mere thought halted his breathing for a good three seconds – how they’d been so eager once that they hadn’t even bothered to fully disrobe and he’d had to run around with a stained shirt the remainder of that day because she’d jerked him off with those _petite hands-_ “Oh merde, merde,  _merde_ …”, he whimpered in the night as he came, his release feeble and only fueling his need for Sam instead of sating it.  “…Merde, Sam, sans toi, ce suffira jamais…”

 

“Sam!” Turning around, she noticed Archie running up at her, his T-shirt singed and his baseball bat just a little more dented than it’d already been.  “What tha hell was that ‘bout, sistah?  Y’ain’t even  _tried_ t’kill ‘im!”

“Mmmh.”, she mumbled, not bothering to lift her mask.  She and Gabriel had closed their pact in two simple messages, two messages they’d deleted from their telephones but had saved in their heart, she knew.  It had taken three days of battles but finally they’d met on the battlefield, and instantly turned around and ran the other way.  The only thing she  _hadn’t_ taken into account was the fact that Archie had been following her and that he had seen the both of them turn around and walk away from each other.  Clearly, the scout hadn’t had any qualms whatsoever about finishing her job for her.

“…Gabe’s prob’ly gonna come huntin’ for me next… d’ya wanna explain before he comes to bury his Axtinguisher inside’a my skull or are ya gonna keep ‘mmhh’in’ ya way outta this?”

“Mmmh.”

“…Izzat a ‘yeah’ or a ‘fuck off’?”, the scout asked – Sam meant to just walk off, not up to offering an explanation to her friend, but he held her back, his hand exerting a vice-like grip on her upper arm tight enough to hurt even through the thick suit she wore.  “Sam, for tha love of God, I ain’t in on tha entire fuckin’ ‘let’s keep Sam an’ Dante apart’ plan, I think it’s just as fucked up as you do! Please, show a li’l trust in ya friends!”  It was that mention that had Sam pull off her mask and snort.

“Yeah, like  _they’_ re my friends at this moment.  How do they think keeping me from the man I love is going to improve my performance in battle, or my cooking? All I can think about is him – when I fight, when I cook, when I shower, when I read, when I’m laying in bed…  falling asleep is hard, and at this rate, nobody is going to see me and Gabriel this weekend, not even for the waterbattle-”

“But ya gotta cook for us, you an’ Dante said – you  _promised –_  to man tha barbecue!  Besides, like Gabriel’d ever miss out on lightin’ a fire, ‘specially outside’a battle, when he’s _allowed to_  for once.”, the scout protested, and Sam rolled her eyes, motioning for the scout and her to head back to respawn.  Once they arrived there, Archie painstakingly started stuffing his pockets full with pistol clips, allowing Sam to explain to him.

“On Monday, it worked.  I was focused, and creative with my killing people… all because I was  _pissed off_. But right now, I am  _beyond_ distracted. I steer clear of Dell and Jane because they’ll know, and Siegfried’s pulled me out of a tight spot earlier today.  Only barely.  I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to take this… this being away from Gabriel…”, Sam admitted, shaking her head as she added: “…And so is Gabriel.  He’s died more times than I did today.  I know why everyone’s so adamant about me and Gabriel being kept apart, and I can’t blame you guys, but… this is torture.  This isn’t working.  Instead of becoming better, we’re getting worse, and I don’t know of any way to make the rest of the guys understand that.” Heaving a sigh, she sagged onto the bench before checking her flamethrower, figuring she would at least need to refuel.  Meanwhile, Archie sighed as well as he sat down next to her, drawing up his nose for the gasoline that she poured into her fuel tank but otherwise speaking unimpeded.

“…Yeah, yestahday, ya got so distracted ya nearly drank the dishwashin’ soap an’ poured ya lemonade over the dirty dishes.  Kinda a dead giveaway, sistah…  Well, uh, maybe the guys’ll loosen up again when they notice it ain’t doin’ ya no good?”, he tried, and that made Sam snort.

“Yeah, right, like they’d change their minds… they’re sleeping soundly for eight hours and _they’re_ getting laid, why should they care about  _me_ having to miss out?”

“They ain’t gettin’ laid, Sammy…”, Archie said, nonplussed, and Sam spoke before even realizing what she was doing.

“Oh, believe me, Jane and Dell certainly are-”  Instantly, when she heard her own words, she clapped her hand over her mouth, feeling shocked and seeing her horror reflected off Archie’s face.  “ _Oh shit_ , I wasn’t… I promised…  Archie, forget-”

“Holy shit…  _holy shit_ … Dell an’ Jane?   _Dell?_ An’  _Jane_?! Holy fuckin’ shit… tha’… that’s…”  The scout couldn’t get his thoughts properly voiced, clearly not getting his mind wrapped around the revelation and all it meant.  That fact didn’t last long, though: slowly, a grin crept up on his features and he nodded. “…It explains why the hardhat ain’t nevah minded when Jane woke ‘im up but grumbled when I did… an’ why they’re always ridin’ back ta base togetha on Saturdays…”

“Archie, please, forget I even… oh, Dell is  _really_ going to kill me now…”, Sam groaned, hiding her face in her hands, sloshing gasoline all over her boots.  She was screwing things up: whether it was because she was distracted or because she was thinking of Gabriel or because she was angry at her team, she didn’t know and it didn’t matter.  “…Dammit!”, she reacted a second later, picking up her flamethrower again and stomping outside: she knew she still had her mask off, and she knew that she should put it on again to safeguard her fragile skin, but she was too angry and ashamed of herself to bother going back and picking it up.  Billy came charging at her, shooting at her with his pistol, but she simply kept advancing, burning the RED scout to cinders without even hearing his cries of agony.  She kept going even when doctor Hartmann shot a full round of syringes into her, kept walking even when John shot rockets at her that whizzed past so closely she could smell the powder burning in them, kept going even when Grant’s newly erected sentry shot at her constantly.  Man and machine alike fell before her feet until she sagged, bullet-riddled and battered, on the final control point with the rest of her team cheering, too dazed from the mix of morphine and guilt to properly realize that  _she_ had won the round.  However, when Gabriel dropped to his knees, letting his bloodstained Axtinguisher fall from his hands, she got up and walked over to him quickly before someone of her team could take the shot they were entitled to take as victors of the round.  “The first one that lays a finger on Gabriel after the horn has sounded is a dead man, got it?  Battle’s  _over,_ let’s just go back to the bloody base and shower and eat our damn food. Gabriel, mon amour, j’en ai marre, je te jure que je te retrouve ce nuit-ci.”, she said, and Arsène meant to protest only to be silenced by Archie elbowing him hard in the ribs, causing Sam to thank God once again to have the scout on her side.

“Sam, we’re allowed-”, Dell started, only for Sam to groan, draw her shotgun and load it.  That made all the men around her, Gabriel included, tense and go quiet instantly.

“ _Walk_ , Dell.  I have had it up to  _here_  with everything ‘we’ are allowed.  Nobody seems to give a damn anymore about lenience?  Well, then I don’t, either.”  Looking around the rest of her group, her eyes skipping over Archie and Arsène, who now looked like they both agreed wholeheartedly with her, she added loudly: “Anyone have any objections?!  …No?  Then start walking back to base, dinner’ll be ready in exactly one hour. It’s going to be salad with baked turkey skewers and baked potatoes; if anyone has any objections to  _that, they_ can cook instead.”  She stomped back to base, ignoring the muttering that rose the moment she walked off, dragging Gabriel along and whispering to him softly: “…I meant it, be by the dead end door by midnight, mon amour…”

“Mmmkhmm.”, he said before running back to rejoin his team before the rest of BLU got suspicious – his mumble had sounded relieved and excited all at once, though, which was enough to lift her heart.  Still, when she turned back to the rest of the team, who all looked at her in clear anxious expectation, her voice was harsh again.

“ _Move it_ , people, unless you wanna either eat cold turkey skewers or disgust your tablemates ‘cause you didn’t have time to shower yet!”  The men slowly recovered from their stupor at that, starting to walk back to base briskly, with Sam leading the way.

“Sam… Sam, li-li’l la-   _Sam!_ ”, Dell called, increasingly more desperate-sounding, but the pyro didn’t walk any slower to allow the engineer to catch up by any other means than running to her, which he finally did, panting softly before speaking on: “…Sam, li’l lady, were it really _needed_ t’point yer  _gun_ at me?  Them victory shots’s been ‘round since the start-”

“Look, Dell, before you continue, take a second and  _think_ about the past few days, okay?  Do you think I did any bloody better?”

“Well, y’did take over tha’ final point jus’ now.”, the engineer said, whether out of stubbornness or out of genuine appreciation, Sam didn’t know and she didn’t care.  The only correct answer was ‘no’ but clearly her friend disagreed with her on that.  Snorting, she shook her head and nudged her head towards the base.

“…Just go, Dell.  Take a shower, I expect to see you in the kitchen in half an hour to cut the lettuce and the tomatoes.”, she said in a tone that hopefully indicated to the man how limited her patience was: the way Dell suddenly rushed to base told her he  _did_ understand, fortunately, and it also allowed Archie and Arsène to join her.  The spy looked at her a little hesitantly until she sighed and said in the same exasperated tone she’d used on Dell just seconds before: “…No need to look at me like that, I  _know_ you understood what I told Gabriel, Arsène.”

“…Oui, bien…  I am sorry, Samantha, but do you seenk, vraiment, eet ees a good idea to go against zee weeshes of Dell et Grant?”, he responded, causing her to sigh.  The honest answer to  _that_ question was ‘no’ as well, and she at least understood Dell’s earlier answer a lot better when she sighed and answered.

“…Well, at least I’ll get in trouble feeling less like a doormat.”

“You aren’t zee ‘doormat’ as you say, our ingénieurs respect you – zey only want to keep you out of trouble.”, the spy said, and now she looked at the man, knowing that she had to look as desperate to him as she felt and yet continuing anyway, finally speaking her mind for once and feeling, for the first time since the entire business of keeping her and Gabriel apart had started,  _good_ for voicing her thoughts.

“Gabriel makes me  _better_ , and anyone that doesn’t see that is  _not looking properly_. But thanks for not speaking out there.”

“Ah, yes, for zat you ‘ave Archie to sank, not me – ‘e ‘as gently but firmly reminded me zat friendship is zee most eemportant sink we ‘ave.  …Now, let us go to zee base and eat, I sink you weel need zee énergie, non?”, he said, and Sam, for the first time in days, smiled generously at the thought of a refreshing shower, a good meal, and a long-overdue night together with her lover again.

 

“Well, Gabriel, after these ‘ere dishes ‘re done, yeh’re a free man ‘gain. Y’did well in the past week.”

“Pfyeah,  _right_.”, Gabriel said dismissively as he dropped the last three dishes into the soapy water, picking up the kitchen sponge again before turning to the engineer to add: “I  _sucked_. Got blown apart and shot to shit more times than the rest of ya combined, lost a point, failed to protect you twice…  Face it, keepin’ me an’ Sammy apart doesn’t do shit but make me moody an’ cranky.”

“Son, yeh led th’assault three times, an’ each’a those times, we won.  Yer cookin”s been great, an’ y’ain’t been better rested in weeks.  Like the rest’a us.”, he admitted, and Gabriel snorted.

“Je m’en fous si vous dormez plus maintenant… I really don’t give a fuck about how the rest of ya sleep – I ain’t feelin’ well.  Elle me manque – I fuckin’  _miss_ Sammy. What the hell do a few minutes, or even a few  _hours_ , of extra sleep matter if she ain’t there beside me?”

“Well, t’night, yew an’ her are gonna be able tuh sleep t’gether again.  Uh, jus’ a quick question – here or on BLU side?”, the engineer asked, and Gabriel rolled his eyes.

“Don’t think it matters much, old man, Archie’s stayin’ with Will while I’m with Sammy, an’ they’re just as likely to pull an all-nighter as me an’ Sammy are.  But we’ll be in my room and they’ll bunk on BLU side, so they can glare at  _Will_  at breakfast… and you fils de garce  _ain’t gonna speak a word to Sammy_ about what we get up to, t’comprends?  …Bien, la vaisselle – otherwise I ain’t seein’ Sammy  _at all_ today, and I’m not fuckin’ havin’ that.”, he muttered as he turned back to the matter at hand, quickly washing and rinsing the three plates before tending to the pots and pans, scouring every last speck of grease from them before rinsing them as well and adding them to the  _huge_ pile on the kitchen countertop.  “There ya go, Grant, now-”

“’Ey, washin’ ‘em  _an’_ dryin’ ‘em, Dante, son!”, the engineer said, somehow managing to turn the pyro back around and hand him a dishtowel at the same time.

“T’es pas sérieux!”, Gabriel exclaimed, and Grant cast him a look that answered his question far better than any words could: the engineer was not only serious, but he looked like he’d be capable of barring Gabriel from seeing Sam until the next evening, which was why Gabriel muttered the most vile insults he could think of as he set to work drying off the dishes he’d just washed.  “ _…Espèce de salaud merdique, j’te jure, I’m gonna fuckin’ murder ya in your sleep… burn you like a box of matches… fuckin’ laugh while you’re in pain… I swear to God… crétin foutu…”_

“Less insultin’, more workin’, Gabe, son – the quicker yeh finish, the quicker yew an’ Sam c’n get tuh misbehavin’-”, Grant said, falling quiet when the door opened and a highly irate Sam appeared, startling both men.

“And just  _what the hell_ is  _this_ supposed to be?!”

“Sam! Gabe’s jus’ finishin’ his-”, Grant said – Gabriel was pleased to find that the engineer sounded as fearful as he looked, meaning that he knew full well that Sam wouldn’t have any qualms about punching him or otherwise harming him, whereas Gabriel watched his step – only to get cut off by Sam, her tone bordering on murderous as she spoke.

“Like hell he is.  It’s  _bad enough_ that you think you have the  _right_ to keep me and him apart, it’s even  _worse_ that you treat us worse than  _animals_ , but this?  If Gabriel hasn’t murdered you already, you’ll be dead in a heartbeat if you say even  _one syllable_ against him leaving right now.  Bloody bunch of  _bastards_ , you and  _every last one of our teams_. Gabriel, mon amour, je jure-”

“I know.  Grant, enough is enough.  Sam’s right, you an’ Dell have been fuckin’  _herdin’_ me and Sammy comme si nous sommes des moutons – well, we ain’t sheep, we’re  _people_ an’ we’ve got a  _right_ to enjoy our weekend, even more so ‘cause you keep us the hell apart in the week.  Dry the rest of those dishes off by yourself, man.”  He dropped the dishtowel on the kitchen counter and quickly walked out together with Sam, going to his room and locking the door before pulling her to his bed.  However, instead of kissing her the moment the door was locked, he just kept her close and leisurely ran his hand over her back.  “…Merde, tu m’as manqué, mais… but before we indulge, I’ve gotta confess something.  …Yesterday, while everyone was sleepin’, I… I missed you too damn much again. Wednesday was fuckin’ _amazing_ , Sammy, and I lived for right now, for havin’ you here with me, but…”  He held out his purse to her, and she – in one of those moments which made his heart nearly burst from his body – nodded, wordlessly taking it and taking out the lighter.

“…Where, and what?”, she asked, and he bowed his head.

“In the showers – c’était la seule place ou j’peux masquer le sentir du papier brûlé… an’ the only place where there would be water at hand when things got outta hand… as for what… whatever I got in my hands.  A baseball magazine of Will’s, some receipts from my wallet… Oh, Sammy, j’suis si désolé pour être faible-”, he started, only for Sam to shake her head and kiss him lightly on the cheek.

“You’re the least feeble man I know, Gabriel.  I mean, just look at us right now – we’ve both been wanting nothing more than to get into this room so we could finally enjoy each other again in the way we’ve both missed all week-”

“Oh, believe me, I am  _so_ makin’ up for lost time tonight.  On parle toute la nuit, mon ange, et tout demain si j’peux.”, Gabriel muttered, causing Sam to shudder, but neither of them seemed willing to go forward with that plan just yet. The mood was more tender than passionate.  “…I know what ya mean.  Hell, I suppose stayin’ off ya right now’s a mark of strength, but… but, well, I dunno, it felt like it went so well before, when we could just sleep together every fuckin’ night – now one night without ya an’ I’m goin’ back to burnin’ the first fucking thing I get my hands on.  C’est pitiable.”, he admitted, and Sam shook her head.

“It’s not weak or pitiable, it’s… understandable.  You had it rough, you were stressed out… you didn’t have access to me, or to your stashes since they’re outside, but you did have your lighter…”  She looked at the lighter and flicked it idly, looking at the flame that blossomed up from it before shaking her head and closing the lighter again.  “Let’s not mind one baseball magazine and a couple of receipts that got lost to your hands, mon amour… but I  _am_ curious about what else is in here…”, she said, smiling when he motioned for her to look through the contents of the purse – and Gabriel found his spirits lifting again just from seeing that smile.  It felt amazing, knowing that Sam would always forgive him, no matter how many times he’d relapse.  Her soft chuckle as she produced the first of the pictures – him as a baby, sitting on his mother’s lap – intensified that feeling.

“Ah, yeah…  Donc, ça, c’est ma chère mère, Marylise Dantan.  Une femme d’acier – so strong anyone that tried to crack down on her ended up broken instead.  Not even my father managed to whittle her down.  …And that’s him, my dad.  Marc Dantan – you would’ve paid good money to see  _his_ picture taken, he didn’t like it at all.  ’J’ai toujours l’air de voyou sur mes photos, donc j’aime pas’, he used to complain.  …Oh man… that picture…  That’s me at age six, mon premier jour en école, and Annabelle, my older sister, who’d just started l’école sécondaire the same day.  She  _hated_ that uniform, but I loved it.”

“You look too cute in it, Gabriel…”, Sam admitted, slowly moving a finger over his hair in the picture, which admittedly was just as unruly then as it was now.  “…Well,  _wow_ , then you’ve got quite a jump in time…”, she said as she pulled out the next picture, which showed his fragmented family.

“Ah, ouais.  That picture was taken… I was twenty-three  It’s the last picture I’ve got of my mom.”  He watched Sam run her finger again over the picture, but this time in a much different way, starting from his hair and running along the contour of his image slowly, lovingly.  And yet, her look showed that she didn’t like the way he’d looked as much as she liked the way he looked now.

“…You’re very different.  And that’s no wonder.  She looks… you mum, she looks radiant.  And you do, too.”  Heaving a soft, somewhat sorrowful sigh, Gabriel nodded.

“Oui, j’avais tout pour être heureux.  I had a good job, a steady relationship – Jacques broke it off a month after this pic was taken – an’ a lovin’ family.  …My sister, see?  She’s a generalist.  Shoulda celebrated her forty-first a couple of days ago.”

“Your sister’s a GP?  Uh, une omnipracticienne, pas une spécialiste?”

“Pas d’spécialité, oui.  …Oh, man, and my dad, he’s probably retired by now.”  Another sigh followed, this one airing the sudden sorrow he felt at the thought of his father and sister.  They were out of reach ever since he’d ran away from the psychiatric hospital he’d been in – he hadn’t contacted them anymore, partly out of shame and partly out of fear, and now he wouldn’t even know where to start. “…You know, sometimes it fuckin’  _hurts_ , knowing that they’re gone from my life forever now…”, he admitted, causing Sam to embrace him and hold him close to her softly, kissing his cheek and running her hand over his shoulders soothingly.

“…Then who do you invite to the visitor’s day?”, she asked, and he rolled his eyes before answering.

“…My psychiatrist.  Doctor Amanda Hayakawa – she’s my overseeing psych from when I got sent to prison.  Aussi une femme d’acier.  She listens to me confessin’ my sins three times each year, twice in my yearly eval and once because let’s face it, I do stupid shit each day so at least once a year, I manage to do something fuckin’ moronic enough to warrant suspension from battle.  She’s been called out ‘bout two months ago-”

“When you punched Pierre?”, Sam asked, and Gabriel nodded, winking at Sam.

“Yeah – she was the one that got me to admit to myself that I maybe did more than just  _lust_ after ya.  …She asked me…”, he added when Sam gave him a clearly nonplussed look, “…if you an’ Will both left my life, who would I miss most.  Lemme tell you, Will didn’t much like the answer I gave. …But it was the truth.  Before then, I just wanted ya – but then doc Hayakawa said to me ‘sounds like she stole your heart’ an’ I realized that yeah, you did.  It wasn’t just that I wanted to fuck ya – it was a lot  _more_ than that.  I want you in  _every way_ I can have ya, Sammy, mon ange.  Your body and your nights, sure, but also your great wit, your intellect, your love, your attention, your undying fire, your every second.  Every second you have, I need to be there with ya – and everything  _I_ 've got is all yours.”

“Even your caramel?”, she asked, and he made a face, feigning a tone of shock.

“Well,  _merde_ , j’en pensais pas!”  He pulled her down next to him on the bed, laughing loudly and freely, finally feeling liberated after an entire week of having his every step watched.  Sam and he lay close together, their bodies pressed against the other, and his laughter subsided a little as he added: “…Yeah, including my caramel.  Tu sais bien, t’as mon coeur de caramel, mon ange de feu.”

“Well, that heart of yours, like all good caramel, is wrapped in a delicious body, too.”, Sam admitted, kissing Gabriel lightly on his lips, clearly meaning to tease – and Gabriel didn’t let her get away with it: wrapping his arms more tightly around her body, he pulled her in for a decent, lengthy kiss that reminded him of the other meaning of her being there.

“…Wanna scar the RED team for life?  I’m in the mood for makin’ you scream  _repeatedly_ tonight-”, he muttered, nuzzling her neck as he spoke before cutting himself short in order to give the woman of his life a lovebite, which made her answer become more heated than ever before.

“Bloody hell, Gabriel,  _you’d better_ , the rest of the world can go to hell…  _ah yeah_ …” Her soft moan made the RED pyro singularly focused on the promise he’d spoken, and as he proceeded, he couldn’t help but grin broadly – just like she did.

 

“’Ey yow!  …Wow, ya must’a misbehaved  _real bad_ last night, tha only guy tha’ looks like he got any sleep at all ‘s Graeme!”, Billy said the next day as he walked up to Gabriel and Sam together with Archie; she smiled broadly before answering his statement evasively.

“…Well, he  _would_ get sleep, he’s drunk most of the time.  …Don’t  _you two_ look happy too.  Finally got Arch’ to give up Arsène for the night?”

“…Not really.”, Billy admitted with a grin and a wink at Archie, who chuckled in response.  Looking over to her team’s spy, Sam discovered that he looked at the two scouts occasionally with a soft blush, which told her all she needed to know.  “…Anyway, enough ‘bout what we all got up to last night – I ain’t seein’ ya swimsuit, Sam!”

“Yeah, no fair, Sam.”, Archie protested, causing Gabriel to quickly glare at the scout before pulling Sam against him.

“Heh, she’s gotta make sure we all keep our heads with the game, doesn’t she?  …Mmm, don’t ya, mon ange de feu?”, her lover said as he gently nuzzled her, kissing her on the cheek and causing her to blush.

“Gabriel, don’t do that, your team might actually-”

“Pfeh,  _let ‘em try_. Le fou qui te touche, même le moindre doigt, j’le casse. Lentement.  J’le savorai.”  He then, however, let her go and motioned for the crate where the two engineers stood.  “…Think it’s time ya go and give ‘em a hand explaining.”

“Oh, right!”, she said, rushing off to join Dell and Grant.  The former gave her a broad smile, while the latter seemed to debate publicly berating her for a second before shaking his head and giving her a weary smile as well.  “…Sorry to keep you waiting, Dell, Grant-”

“’s Awright, ah figured yeh’d come over here.”, Dell said – his RED colleague was now giving Gabriel’s back his full attention, glaring at it until Sam sighed and spoke softly to him.

“…Grant, what did you expect when you kept him and me apart the whole week? I’m sorry we kept you and the others awake and horrified last night, but if you’re waiting for us to apologize for enjoying each other and being  _vocal_ about it, then you’ll have to allow us to meet during the week again first. Dell, sorry to say it, but Grant’s got a pretty good idea of what you can expect next week over at BLU side-”

“Ah think we’ll find a way to soundproof tha’ room’a yers, Sam, li’l lady – it ain’t just yew an’ Dante no more, either, ‘cause Billy an’ Arch’ git up tuh th’same trouble now.”, Dell said, his tone of voice showing that he was mentally cursing the situation – then, Grant climbed the crate and cleared his throat, deciding that the topic was closed as far as he was concerned.

“C’n ah have yer attention?!”, he said loudly, causing fifteen heads to turn his head and causing the stocky Georgian to grin.  “Good – so tuhday, we’re havin’ a li’l change’a scenery.  Instead’a always goin’ tuh our dusty town fer dinner an’ drinks, t’night we brought the food an’ the liquids ‘ere.  But ‘fore we eat an’ drink an’ have a nice evenin’, we’s havin’ a li’l bit of fun too.  S’mantha brought up th’idea tuh have us battle durin’ the weekend ‘s well, only instead’a rockets an’ bullets, we’ll be usin’ water; an’ instead’a cappin’ points, we’re grabbin’ some refreshment.  Sam’ll explain what the set-up is fer each’a y’all.”  He got off the crate and Sam took a deep breath before stepping onto the crate, feeling a little self-conscious as the seventeen men all looked at her intently. Suddenly, the short, breezy white beach dress she had on didn’t feel like a luxury as much as a necessity, because even Dell was clearly mesmerized by how much skin she displayed.

“Okay, if you’re all done staring-”, she said: the men clearly didn’t show any signs of stopping their blatantly hungry looks at her until Gabriel spoke, loudly, from his spot at the back of the gathering.

“Ecoutez, ya sorry idiots, this is all you are gonna fuckin’ see, compris?  The first man to so much as  _touch_ Sammy is gonna be wakin’ up tomorrow mornin’ in the fuckin’ medbay hooked up to an IV feelin’ like shit!  J’rigoles pas.”  The first to look away for a moment were Pierre, Arsène and Siegfried, and after that the rest followed, the outright stares diminishing to a minimum.

“Okay, now that you’ve all gotten use of you  _brains_ again… We’ll be making runs for these.”  She held out the two buckets Dell and Grant had prepared: transparent plastic buckets that they’d stencilled with the company logo.  “The RED bucket, in the RED base, will be filled with red water; the BLU bucket in the BLU base will be filled with… well, you get the picture.  Inside each of our bases, there’ll also be a big barrel, like this one.  That’s where you deposit the contents of the bucket, at which point it’ll get teleported back to the opposite base and filled again.  Our two charming engineers, Dell and Grant, will be sitting with the barrels to make sure that nobody cheats.  If anyone finds evidence of either of  _them_  cheating, they’ll be washing tonight’s dishes all by themselves.”, she said, giving a firm look at the two men standing beside her – to her intense satisfaction, they both blanched but didn’t protest in the least, not when the rest of the teams voiced their agreement loudly.  “…Then, for our weapons.  You’ll all get two weapons – a small water pistol for close quarters and a bigger weapon.  First off we have our heavies and our medics, who will be paired up for the day using these…”  She motioned for the two heavy-looking spray guns which were attached to a backpack via a thin hose. “…Siegfried, doctor Hartmann, you’ll be responsible for keeping the pressure of those guns up by pumping the water into them with the backpacks.  Yaro, Radovan, those guns are heavy but I think you’ll manage since you carry Sasha and Katyusha around all the time.” Both Russians grinned and nodded, allowing Sam to continue: “Tavish, Graeme, Jane and John will be using those air cannons which they’ll load with waterballoons.  You can also choose to throw the balloons by hand, as you’d use a grenade.  For everyone else save for Arsène and Pierre, we’ve got these bigger water guns.  Our lovely spies only need one weapon, we figure, since stealth is their forte.  …And finally, me and Gabriel – we’ll get the really sweet weapons, of course, the spray-nozzle guns.  …Everyone knows what they’re supposed to do?”, she asked – when the men nodded, she motioned for the tables where the weapons lay.  “Okay, then let’s grab our weapons and get going!”  She quickly helped Siegfried and Yaroslav get to grips with the backpack and the high-pressure gun before showing Tavish and Jane how to fire their balloon-thrower guns, and when she moved to grab her gun, she gave Gabriel a quick kiss on the cheek that garnered them a few wolf-whistles; however, after that, as she and the rest of her team moved to their base together with Grant, their bucket and their barrel, she grinned and spoke to the rest. “…Okay, you guys, the best thing to do here if you want to win is just keep running.  They can’t incapacitate you in this battle – no limbs flying off, no risk of explosions… just water, water, and more water.”

“Yeah, this is gonna be an easy fight, men!”, Jane boomed, causing the rest to roll their eyes.  Grant, however, chuckled.

“’s gonna be an easy fight fer  _both_ sides, y’all – in case y’ain’t noticed, yeh can’t incapacitate th’others neither.”

“…Yeah, but we got a weapon they don’t got!”, Archie said cheerily – everyone, Sam included, looked at the scout in confusion before he elaborated: “Ya forget, we’ve got  _Sam_ on our side.  ’s soon as she gets soaked?  Ain’t gotta incapacitate ‘em, just send in Sam an’ they’ll be fallin’ over ‘emselves ta get a look at her-”

“Now, son…”, Grant started, but Sam guessed what he was about to say and shook her head.

“Well, it isn’t cheating… and it would work, the way everyone on RED was staring at me-”

“Oh, yeah, but Gabriel ain’t gon’ like it none, Sam, pardner.  If yeh deliberately go lookin’ fer enemy fire-”

“Or  _friendly fire_ , I don’t think Theo’s above shootin’ ya.”, Archie pitched in, getting a glare from the RED engineer who then continued as if uninterrupted.

“-then he might start punchin’ the guys that shot yeh.”

“Yeah, or he’s gonna pull Sam away from the battle.  I mean, look at her, Grant – ‘s a miracle Dante kept his hands off’a her so far.”  The engineer rolled his eyes.

“Yeh’d say tha’, but ah know otherwise-  Oh, yeah, Sam, give us yer gun, we’ll top y’up first.”, he said, sitting down at the hose they’d installed in the intelligence room while Yaroslav deposited the barrel next to the cart where the intelligence would normally lay. “…Way she an’ Gabriel kept us awake, ‘s a miracle they c’n still  _stand_.”

“Oh, Grant, haven’t you ever been young and in love?”

“Yeah, dahlin’, an’ it ended with a divorce, so ah know where bein’ young an’ in love gits yeh.”, the engineer said, and Sam snorted.

“Pfeh, like I’d ever  _divorce_ Gabriel-”, she said, only to suddenly blush, take her watergun from the hands of Grant and run off outside, slightly dazed.  When she came to the respawn room at the top of the staircase, she ducked inside, groaning.  ’…I did not just say that.  I seriously did not just say that I wouldn’t ever divorce Gabriel in front of Grant and Archie and the others.  I-‘

“Yeah, ya did say that.”, came the offhand reply from the door: looking up, Sam saw Archie standing in the doorway, holding out a water pistol at her.  “…Ya left this.  Horn’s gonna sound in two minutes, Grant’s just toppin’ up Yaro and doc Steinheim’s gun. Bucket’s all filled and ready… you ready?”

“…I didn’t mean it like you think… I just didn’t  _think_ -”, Sam started, blushing softly, and Archie chuckled.

“Oh, ya meant it awright, but hell, if anyone on our team thinks ya are just Gabe’s bedwarmah after that, they’re idiots.  …So, ya ready, Sammy?”, he said, offering his hand for her to pull herself upright again, which she did with a generous smile.

“To soak our sorry RED opponents for fun and giggles?  Oh, I was  _born_ ready!”

 

“You guys, this is the last of the food, after this you’ll have to live off dust and rocks!”, Sam exclaimed, her voice betraying that she’d been enjoying more than a few of the cocktails that Graeme and Tavish had been preparing.  “We’ve still got two hamburgers, two sausages, three steaks and one halved chicken and that’s it!”

“Don” worreh, lass, we can eat ‘em!”, Graeme muttered – it was clear from  _his_ voice that he’d been dipping into his stash, Gabriel mused with a slight grin.

“Eat fast, people, they’re getting cold and I still have to clean this grill!”, Sam said, starting to shovel the pieces of meat onto plates, winking at Gabriel who suddenly found himself feeling elated. She still wore the minute dress she’d worn during the battle – the dress that had become nearly transparent the longer they’d fought, to the point where RED had lost a bucket or two simply because the men hadn’t been able to look away from Sam in the flame-patterned bikini she had on underneath the beach dress.  Only after Gabriel had threatened to punch the first one that didn’t keep his mind on the battle did they focus again, so much so that they had even won.  The BLUs had had to wait on their RED counterparts as a prize – it had been funny to see the dejected look on Yaroslav’s face as Radovan told him to get him the juiciest steak he could find, rare, but it had been absolutely  _delighting_ for him, of course, because none of the others had had a woman in a semi-transparent dress wearing nothing but scraps of cloth underneath it feed them a chicken.  He’d taken particular pleasure in gently holding Sam’s hand and licking the fat off her fingers, and if he wasn’t mistaken, Sam had enjoyed that as well.  “Okay, let’s see-”, Sam muttered, looking at the grill with clear apprehension, and Gabriel shook his head.

“Laisse-moi le faire, mon ange…  Radovan, bring over your gun, man!”, he shouted, and the tall, imposing Russian got up, picking up the heavy gun-and-backpack with ease.

“Here you go, Danti.  Is be careful?”

“Toujours, mon ami – ya know I’m always careful.  …Okay, Sammy, go ahead and put the backpack on an’ keep pressure just like ya saw doc Hardass do-”

“He haff  _proper_ name, Danti, is Rudolf or doktor Hartmann.”, the heavy weapons expert remarked, but Gabriel nodded quickly.

“Yeah yeah, Rudolf Hardass – like him.  …Ready?”, he asked, and Sam nodded, pumping down the lever on the right side continuously until it became hard to even move it at all, at which point Gabriel pressed the trigger and a strong jet of water sprayed out over the grill, instantly putting out the fire and washing off all fat and cinders off the grill and onto the soaking coals.  Grant groaned as he saw it, Gabriel noticed, but he was past caring about the engineer’s objections – it was satisfying to get his and Sam’s cleanup work done in seconds.  “…I think that’s us ready.”

“Woo!”, Sam cheered, dropping the backpack onto the ground.  “…So, I might need to change, all of  _you_ guys have on a shirt and I’m still walking around in only my swim things-”

“Yeah, an’ it’s gittin’ kind ‘f chilly.”, Dell said, smiling generously at her from the table where the engineers, soldiers and Yaroslav were already playing their poker game.  Gabriel rolled his eyes, knowing that the only reason some of the guys had had to change was because they needed to give themselves some emergency cooling-down after seeing Sam run around practically naked among them.  Even  _he_ had found himself having to walk away some of the times to will his mind and his body back to order because he felt light-headed.  But now, as Sam gently pulled on his hand, he mused that the return of that previous fire was nothing if not natural and even  _good_.

“…So I’ll call it a night.  Don’t wait up, okay?”  Dell muttered something that was probably a protest, and Grant looked like he had a few choice words to say on the subject as well, but Sam’s pull on his hand was stronger than himself by then and Gabriel eagerly ignored the two engineers as he walked off back to base with her.  However, instead of heading inside, Sam pulled him to the side, back to the battlefield they’d vacated, causing Gabriel to blink.

“…T’fais quoi maintenant?  Don’t you-”  He was cut off by Sam kissing him deeply, pulling him against her so tightly he could feel every last crease in her dress and every last stitch that held her bikini together: instantly, his body responded to the closeness and he kissed her back with abandon, his hands migrating from her arms over her shoulders and back to her behind, where they stayed even as they parted.  “Merde, tu m’embrase si facilement, si rapidement… nous devons aller quelque part vite ou nous nous couchons ensemble juste ici.”, he admitted, and Sam smiled broadly and alluringly, whispering in the quiet as she slowly pulled him along.

“…I saw how difficult you had it during battle, mon amour.  Must’ve been hard.”

“C’était dur d’être obligé de te toucher pas, mon ange…”, he said, translating himself simply to make sure she understood every last nuance of his words: “…Oh, so hard, not bein’ able to touch you at all…  Man, I was  _shit_ today, at this waterbattle crap… with you runnin’ around half-naked…”

“I know.”, she admitted, kissing his shoulder and allowing the hand that wasn’t holding his to travel up his chest and his neck to his cheek, gently pulling him down so she could whisper in his ear: “ _I_ had the same problem, seeing you all hot and not being able to do  _anything_ to show you I felt just as needy as you… seeing you all wet like that, with those oversized shorts clinging to your legs and wanting nothing more than to get you alone and completely undressed…”

“J’ai si envie de toi, mon ange de feu, c’est comme si la nuit passée n’est pas s’passé du tout…”, he admitted, and she nodded.

“That’s why I wanted us to come here, so we don’t keep our teams awake two nights in a row.”, she said – only when he heard the sound of a door rolling up did he know where exactly she’d led him.

“…The respawn room, huh?  …Mais on n’a pas de lit ici, et pas de couverts comme les dernières fois-”  He meant to say that they’d be sore if they spent more than a couple of minutes on the tile floor, but Sam persisted, pulling him along to the center of the room before pulling him to the wooden bench to the side.

“I don’t care, Gabriel, if we get a couple of bruises, or if we’re all stiff and sore in the morning.  I need you, mon amour… I need you so badly…”, she admitted before kissing him and ending whatever objections he could have: his hands found themselves on the hem of her beach dress, pulling it off her to expose the flame-patterned bikini that had driven him crazy all afternoon.  However, as soon as he had her in just the bikini, she detached from him and walked backwards slowly, to the wall next to the supplies cupboard, leaning against it and motioning for him to walk over.  “…Gabriel, mon amour, I can see you want me, what are you waiting for?  Right here…  _right damn now_ …”, she said softly, licking her lips so invitingly that it was hardly a wonder that he promptly lifted her off her feet to kiss her, something she gladly seemed to indulge if her wrapping her legs around his waist was any indication.

“ _Oh merde_ , mon ange, tu seras si éraillée demain matin… J’vais te faire hurler afin que tout le monde peut entendre à quel point je te donne plaisir…”, Gabriel muttered in between kissing down her neck heatedly.  “ _Fuck,_ these swimshorts are still  _too damn tight-”_

“Then get them off, Gabriel, or let me down so I can…”, Sam whispered – Gabriel had no choice but to let her get to her feet, at which point she dropped to her knees, pulling his swimtrunks down and instantly engulfing him in the warm wetness of her mouth.  Normally, he would let her set the pace, but the way he ached for her and the way she’d had him on edge practically all evening, with only his willpower keeping his physical response in check, made sure that his self-restraint vanished in the blink of an eye.

“ _Ohhh m-merde, mon ange…_ I… I… j’suis désolé- _eehhhh…_ ”, he groaned as he rolled his hips into her, expecting her to pull back, but instead she opened her mouth wider and _moaned_ around his length, making him gasp and repeat the motions of his hips in a more fleshed out thrust.  “Merde, Sammy… j’vais jamais… durer… jamaaiiiiis… oh  _fuck, fuuuuck… ahhhh!_ ” He had his hands on Sam’s head by then, gasping as he plainly drove himself as deep as she could take him on each thrust, shivering – but when Sam pulled off him, he allowed it, looking her over as she slowly rose and kissed him.  He could taste himself on her tongue, along with the taste of the hamburger she’d eaten and the cocktails she’d drunk.  “T’me rends fou, Sammy…”, he admitted, causing her to laugh hoarsely.

“Good, because I want you crazy, Gabriel… crazy with need, just like I am…  _oh god_ , I want to sit on your lap again, like… like that first time…” Images of him sitting on the edge of her bed, gripping her hips tightly and thrusting up into her came to mind – and he nodded, pulling her to the bench and down on his lap, causing her to laugh again.  “I think I need-  _oh…”_ Her words ended in a soft sigh as he pulled the knots that held her bikini bottom up, causing it to simply fall off her and enabling him to pull it away.  Her sigh was followed by a sharp gasp and a heated  _“ohh!”_ as he motioned for her to lean back into his arms so he could thrust up into her, which he did eagerly; it didn’t take him long to moan loudly for her.

“Samantha… oh, mon dieu, mon ange… m-merde,  _j’vais jamais te lâcher…_ I’m gonna keep… gonna keep on…  _ahh…_ ” However, when he looked Sam over, he also noticed movement at the door to the respawn room, causing him to stop and Sam to whimper.

“ _Gabrieeeel-_ ”

“Shh, mon ange, someone’s tryin’ to come in here…”, he quickly muttered before raising his voice to deter the people that wanted to intrude on their intimacy: “Get the fuck away, we got every right to be here!”

“H-ho-ho,  _maaaaaannnn_! Gabriel, a-ain’t no need to yell, brotha… ya don’t mind sha-ssharin’, do ya?”, came the slurred answer, the voice familiar – and as if the fact that his former boyfriend stood out there trying to butt in on him and Sam wasn’t already horrifying enough, a  _second_ voice joined in, equally familiar to him and his lover.

“Y-yeah, ‘s room enough for tha four’a us, brotha!”

“Archie, Billy, how drunk do ya have to be to think that’s a fuckin’  _good idea_?!”, Gabriel shouted, but the scouts didn’t relent and the door slid open just enough to allow them passage.  Instantly, Gabriel knew that they were both drunk beyond the point where they had barely any judgment at all left: both held a bottle of some spirits, vodka in Billy’s case and gin in Archie’s, that had mere sips of their contents sloshing about inside.  “ _Get the hell out-_ ”

“…Awww, Da-dante, doooon’t be like that, man!  M-me an’ Archie jus’… jus’ wanna have ssssome fun, ehehehe!”, Billy said, every word sounding like he’d forgotten how to properly use his mouth in a coordinated way – behind him, Archie seemed savvy to his inebriation for a second, since he just nodded and grinned – and the RED scout licked his lips before he continued: “A-an’ bessshides… we could  _hear_ ya… an’ we kinda g-got hot… I mean, _fuuuuuck_ , Gabriel, lookit ya…  You an’ her… ya make a real good pair… ssssso we wanted to see, y’know?”

“Yeah, we… wanna know h-ho-how you an’ her get ta… get to keep RED up a whooooooooole night!  ’s All, brotha!”, Archie chimed in, and Gabriel meant to protest when Sam sat up a little straighter and whispered in the quiet between them.

“…They’ll forget all about it anyway, the way they’ve been drinking, and there’s no harm in them looking on, mon amour… je suis encore tout pour toi, peu importe quoi…”  To prove the point, she pushed herself down onto him and moaned, sending fire down his spine straight to his groin.  When she moaned, it was again loud enough for the two scouts to hear: “ _Oh, Gabriel…_ ”

“Merde… okay, j’m’en fous, stay and  _watch_ if that’s what you fuckin’ want – I can’t… Sammy, mon ange, lean back again, let me-  _ah ouais…_ ” It felt to him as if the scouts had flickered from existance again when Sam leaned back into his arms again and allowed him to continue just the way they’d proceeded before, sending his spirits soaring and his body aching with the need for his release.  Billy and Archie seemed to understand that they needed to be quiet as well, causing all he heard to be  _Sam’s_ gasps and  _her_ moans and  _his_ responses. “ _Ohh, j’vais jamais, jamais durer… putaaaaaaiiiiiin…_ S-sam, oh, mon  _aaaaaange_ …”

“C-come on, Gabriel… don’t… don’t stop, don’t…  _oh… ohh ye-e-e-eeaaaahhhh…_ ” He could feel Sam tremble in his arms, showing how she was skating the edge that he was so rapidly running towards, and suddenly he got an idea.

“Y-your feet… over my shoulders… j’te jure, c’sera  _fantastique…_ ” When Sam complied, her ankles now on either side of his neck, he groaned and started slowing his thrusts a little to keep her from going over already: the added depth he got was more than enough to make him gasp out her name repeatedly and move his hands from her lower back to her shoulders.  “ _Sam, ahh, Sam, j’veux t’entendre c-crier pour moi maaaaintenant…_ c-c’mon…  _be loud-”_

“ _Oh, fuck, Gabriel…”_ , she groaned out, nodding – his next thrust had her loudly moan and with one more thrust, she was squeezing around him as she shouted his name loudly; the sound of her voice alone, loud and somewhat hoarse, saying his name in that moment of bliss, had him return the favor as he pulled her shaking body right into his final thrust.  “Oh, _damn…_ that was…”, she said, breathing heavily as they came back down from their high, turning a little to look at the scouts and blushing instantly.  “… _oh, wow –_ that’s why they were so quiet…”  Clearly she hadn’t forgotten about the scouts, not as completely as he had, but when she mentioned their two spectators, Gabriel looked at them to see them lying head-to-feet eagerly giving each other a blowjob.  “…Ah well, if we don’t mind lookers-on, they surely can’t object…”, she said, and Gabriel grinned.  She didn’t move off his lap, instead wrapping her arms around him to keep him close as they both watched Billy and Archie indulge in each other.  “…Hmm, d’you want me to clean you up a bit?”, she asked, and he shook his head.

“Non – I like me all dirty from havin’ my way with you, mon ange de feu… c’est comme un petit rappel que j’ai été là, et ça me fait penser à comment je serai là bientôt de nouveau…”

“Not even properly winded down from the first go and you’re already planning round two, huh?”, Sam joked – when he nodded, she grinned and licked her lips.  “…I don’t mind that.  I don’t mind it one bit, mon amour… now, let’s say we start  _executing_ some of those plans of ours, huh?”, she remarked lightly, kissing down the side of his neck, making his grin grow broad – when she parted her lips and gave him a new lovebite right on the spot where an old one had been sitting only days before, he groaned and moved his hands down her back to her hips again.

“ _Ah, merde_ , you’re doin’ it again, Sammy, tu fais que mon corps s’embrase comme un incendie de forêt…  Fuck, I hadn’t even gone down yet-”

“Oh, but don’t let anything stop you from that – want me to lie down?”, she asked, and he shook his head, nudging his head for the wall where they’d been standing before and causing her to grin as she kissed him deeply.  He groaned into the kiss, gently grinding himself against her.  She was like a drug – no, she was like oxygen: a necessity without which he wouldn’t be able to live.  Her skin pressing against him was the drug, her body enveloping his was the addiction in his life; every kiss was like another sip of the finest liquor, another taste of the universe-broadening substance she exuded just for him… “Mmmh, _Gabriel, mon amour…_ Think you’re up for round two?”

“Hell, the way you were kissing me, I’m more than up for it.  How-”, he started.  She got up and he intended to follow, thinking she wanted a repeat of their second night together with him holding her up between his own body and the wall, but she pushed him back down and then sat back down on his lap, only facing away from him this time.  He slipped inside her just as easily as before, but instead of thrusting up into her, now  _she_ was the one to set the pace: it became clear just how eager she was for him when she barely paused before moving in a  _murderous_ rhythm, gasping sharply each time she had him as deep as he could go.

“Mmm,  _Gabriel_ , hold me… oh, mon amour, j-je suis  _en flammes pour toi_ …”, she admitted: he gripped her hips and she groaned contentedly, and when one of his hands moved to her breast to pinch her nipple, she let out a loud, extremely satisfied squeal.  “ _Oh my god… Gabriel, I won’t-_ ”

“I know…”, he muttered, pulling her back against his chest and eagerly sucking on the skin at the nape of her neck, eliciting a moan from her as she put her hands on his knees to steady herself.

“ _Oh my god, oh my god, oh dear god… oh Gabriel, ohhh n-noooo-_ ” Clearly, from the way her movements began to become sharp and erratic, she was right on the edge again, and for once Gabriel didn’t want to prolong the experience.

“Oh, oui,  _oui_ …”, he ground out as he squeezed her breasts and rolled his hips into her downward motions, resulting in a sharp cry from her as she lost herself again.  The feeling of her body gripping his length almost too tight was exhilarating even if he wasn’t yet near climax, and when she came down to earth again, getting off him to look him over with half-lidded eyes, the grin she bore was more than enough to make him ache even more.  “Merde, n’me regardes pas comme ça, mon ange… I could come just from seeing you hungry for me like this…”

“I think I want you to eat me out, Gabriel… I want to feel your lips on me…  _mmm_ , and your _tongue_ …”, Sam admitted, provoking a grin from him that was beyond his usual lopsided, lewd grins.

“Et bien… lay down, mon ange…”

“Have a better idea…”, she said, pulling him up and walking to the windowsill at the opposite wall, where they’d been standing before – they stepped around the scouts that were now laying face to face kissing each other, their hands on the other’s erections, paying no heed to the fact that the two looked up at them – where Sam motioned for him to kneel down as she sat on the windowsill, leaning back against the window and hooking her legs over his shoulders. “…Bon appétit, mon amour.”

“ _Damn, Sammy…_ ”, he said emphatically before licking the moisture off her swollen privates.  She tasted like paradise – the taste of his own seed, salty and sharp, mingling with the almost sickly sweetness of her own fluids, and when he kissed that spot at the top of her labia she gasped his name.

“Ahh, Gabriel!  …Oh god…”  She leaned her head back as well now, eyes closed an an enraptured expression on her face, which gave him the idea to gently suckle on that spot instead of just kissing it – her resulting half-cry set his blood ablaze.  “ _GABRIEL, oh my god… oh s-shiiit… that…_ oh my lord,  _again…”_

“J’veux pas que tu finisses sans moi de nouveau, mon ange…  I wanna eat you out an’ get you all ready for a little more-”

“Or…”, came the offhand sound of Billy’s voice from right next to him, sounding utterly drunk with both alcohol and lust: turning his attention away from Sam for a moment, he saw Billy half-lay next to him, Archie sitting behind him and lathering his length and Billy’s sphincter up with lubricant, and he instantly understood what Billy meant to say.  The scouts clearly weren’t intending on just  _looking on_  anymore, they wanted to actively participate.  Looking at Sam, he noticed her shrug and figured that if she didn’t mind, he wouldn’t.

“Okay, bien, mais-  _oh merde…!”_ His protest turned to a groan when Billy used all of his knowledge about just how he liked to get blown – and then, of course, Sam pulled him back to the matter at hand and he reapplied himself to bringing  _her_ pleasure, using his lips and his tongue to lap up every last bit of fluid he could find, moaning every so often as Billy brought him pleasure in turn.  Sam’s gasps mingled perfectly with Archie’s groans, he found, and Billy moaning around his length made it clear that all four of them were enjoying their foursome.  However, just a second before he’d lose it – and at the exact moment when Sam gasped and squeezed his head against her as she shivered delightfully against his tongue – Billy pulled off him to cry out together with Archie, who wildly bucked against his lover’s hips in the throes of orgasm.  “…Shit, Billy, I was  _this fuckin’ close_ -”, Gabriel ground out, meanwhile allowing Sam to slip her legs off his shoulders again.  “…Oh fuck…”, he groaned in frustration – and then, as Sam pulled him along to the bench again and pushed him down on it to go down on him in Billy’s stead, he repeated it in a much more heated voice: “ _Ohh, fuuuck…  Sammy_ , n-non, fais pas, j’vais…  _ahh meeeerde…_ ” There was no way he could still hold back, close as he’d been and amazing as his girlfriend was: tangling his hand in her hair, he thrust into her mouth and came, riding out the waves of joy as wildly as she allowed him to.  When she pulled off him, grinning broadly, he grinned as well.  “Oh, mon ange, I’m so goddamn lucky to have ya-”

“Hey, you deserved to enjoy just as much as I did.  …Still got the energy for a round three?”, she asked with a wink, and he nodded.

“J’ai dis ‘toute la nuit’ et j’mentirais jamais… you?”

“Oh, Gabriel, when it comes to you, I’ve  _never_ lacked the stamina or the need.  Rough this time, no holding back, just  _wild_  and  _pure_ like we both want.”, she said softly, and he nodded.  Her mentioning it like that – ‘rough and pure’ – meant that she wanted them to disregard everything apart from her, and he was not about to disagree to that, not when he wanted her even more badly now than he’d wanted her before.  Her body was slick with sweat, her bikini top had come undone before, when they’d gone for round two, her hair was tangled and her hips had a couple of bruises from where he’d squeezed her too tightly before – and yet she looked perfect to him.

“Comment, mon ange?”, he asked, and she wordlessly sat on her hands and knees on the bench, her behind in the air, looking back at him with her eyes clearly inviting him to ‘come and get it’.  “Ah,  _ouais,_ I can’t resist an offer like that…”

“Too da-damn right ya can’t…”, Archie said – Gabriel ignored the BLU scout in favor of running his hands over Sam’s back, over her ass, down to her legs and back up, driving his fingers tentatively into Sam’s all-too-receptive nethers and getting rewarded with a soft squeal of delight.

“Mmm, tu veux bien que je te baise sans me garder, non?  …You  _love_ it rough, don’t ya, mon ange, mon délir… love how  _pure_ it is when I just fuck you like I wanna…”, he muttered as he thrust his fingers slowly in and out of her, getting them coated in her fluids.  “…Oh, damn, Sammy, you’re so fuckin’  _ready_ for me, so eager… I could do this all night, ya know, do ya with my fingers, bring you to the edge again and again and again, then let you cool right back down and go all over again… keep you  _on that edge until sunrise when I finally let you come hard for me, ange…_ j’voudrais bien te faire crier jusqu’à perdre ton voix…”

“Gabriel,  _daaaamn iiiiit_ …!”, Sam gasped out, thrusting back against his fingers.  “I need you… take me… I caaaan’t…  _Gabrieeellll… fuuuck meeee…_ ”

“If you ask like that, how could I say no?”, he said, sitting down on the bench behind her and simply pushing inside her, groaning as he did so.  Just the thought of how eager she was for him made him so aroused that it almost ached.  “Sammy, t’es trop chaud… I’m  _not gonna last long at all…_ ”

“Then you’d better make it count-”, Sam muttered, her words being cut off in favor of another sharp gasp as he held her hips and started to slowly but deeply thrust into her.  “ _Mon amour…_ H-harder,  _p-pleeeaaaase… ahh yeah!_ ” He couldn’t speak as he gave her what she asked, his mind singularly focused on fulfilling her wish and not on unimportant details like _speech_. Or, as it turned out, the movement of the two scouts so they sat opposite him and Sam on the same bench, facing them.  When Sam’s gasps and half-cries turned to moans, he looked and saw that the cause was that she was going down on Archie, silencing her every sound on his length.  The scout was sitting on top of Billy, leaning back and moaning loudly within the confines of the room.

“ _Jeeeesus fuuuuck… S-sam, t-this ‘s toooooo fuckin’ gooooooood, ahhhh- Holy shiiit, Billy, fuckin’ do that again…!”_ , the scout managed to utter, biting his lip hard apparently when Billy rolled his hips up into Archie and drove himself deeper inside him. However, Gabriel couldn’t tear his eyes off Sam, her mouth fastened on Archie’s erection and her privates too hot and too wet around him, and he moaned softly before speaking heatedly to her.

“ _J’vais te faire perdre le nord… riiight fuckin’ now, mon aaaange…”_  Gripping her hips, he moved so he stood instead of kneeling on the bench, which lifted her just a little and made her pull off Archie to nearly squeal in delight.

“ _Ah, Gabriel!!”_

“…S-shit, Sam, I ain’t gonna last long – i-if ya don’t wanna-  _Ahhh yeah…”_ , Archie ground out, his words turning into a happy moan as Sam reapplied herself to his length, but Gabriel was past caring at that point.  Whatever thoughts he’d had about the scouts intruding on him and Sam were long forgotten, any protest he could’ve had nullified by the sheer heat taking over his entire body as Sam seemed to melt his insides with the way she moaned now, loud and inarticulate.  It didn’t even matter to him that she was pleasuring another guy, or that she would be sleeping in the same room as Archie the next evening: all that occupied his mind, or what little of it he still had command over, was the way her body seemed to pull him deeper, accommodating even his hardest, deepest thrusts and squeezing him when he drew out again, as if trying to entice him never to leave.

“ _Samantha… oh mon dieu, j’veux pluuuuus…  I want it all, oh merde, t’me fait brûler…   oh God, Sammy,_ I don’t ever wanna fuckin’  _stooop…_ ”, Gabriel muttered, shifting her weight just a little – Sam gasped for breath for just a second, pushing herself up off Archie to do so, right into Gabriel, and that was too much for his already fraying self-control: with a loud gasp, he let his mind happily go blank on his final, deep thrust into her.  He still had the faculty of mind, though, to still sense the way Sam’s resulting moan sounded like she’d just hit her own peak as well and the way the muscles of her stomach seemed to shiver under his fingertips with the force of her release.  Archie and Billy’s cries of pleasure didn’t matter; in fact, when he opened his eyes again, sinking down onto the bench again and letting Sam’s hips go in the process, all he had eyes for was the way she turned around slowly, pulling him in for a lengthy, indulgent kiss.  The world could fall apart around him and he wouldn’t even blink, let alone leave the arms of the woman that had given him the life and the love he’d dreamt of for so long.


	21. Just us two (me and you)

Sam woke up feeling achy – her joints creaked and popped when she stretched, and her muscles protested.  Next to her, Gabriel mumbled in his sleep, something indistinct though the way he pulled her against him was indicative enough about who he was talking to, and she smiled before feeling a sudden wave of nausea hit.  She nearly jumped out of the bed running to the toilet, but by the time she got there, the nausea had diminished to a burning feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she sighed as she instead used the toilet to relieve her over-filled bladder, feeling remotely better.

“…Sam, t’es okay?”, Gabriel mumbled when she went back to his room, sounding awake despite the fact that he’d been deeply asleep when she’d left, which made her realize she’d woken him up with how sudden she’d left the bed.

“Y-yeah, sorry, I was nauseous and I thought I had to… anyway, I didn’t mean to wake you up, mon amour.  Can I…?”

“You never gotta ask, mon ange…”, he said with a grin that was evident from his voice more than from his features, as they were obscured by the relative darkness around them.  She crawled back under the covers, settling comfortably in his arms: his left hand instantly started running over her arm slowly, almost soothingly. “…T’es malade?”

“I don’t think so, no – the only burning up I have is feeling slightly warm from being so close to you, Gabriel.”

“That’s a different kind of fever, sweet Samantha.”, he admitted, his grin doubling in self-satisfaction, and she chuckled.

“No doubt it’s easily transmitted, too, because from the sound of it I gave it to you in turn.”  She kissed his shoulder in the dark, relishing how warm and soft the skin felt under her lips, and then felt him nuzzle her hair in turn.  “…So, what’ll we do today?  No doubt you’ve got plans.”

“Well, not really, to be honest.  I just thought I’d hear what you’d like to do, mon ange. …T’as des idées pour aujourd’hui?”, he asked, and she smiled.

“…We could go and have ice cream again?”  Her ear was pressed against his chest and as such, she could hear his heartrate pick up instantly at the thought.

“Ah, mais oui!  We haven’t been out for ice cream since before ya went for your surgery!  Il était temps que nous allions là-bas de nouveau, non?…Though I have to admit, the ice cream’ll be jealous – my new favorite flavor ‘s  _you_.  Plus douce que la caramel, plus savoureuse que la vanille…”

“Gabriel, if you’re trying to charm your way into my arms, you know that’s kind of superfluous since you’re  _already in my arms_.”, Sam said with a soft though thoroughly flattered blush, prompting Gabriel to chuckle and squeeze her a little tighter against himself.

“I’ve got to make sure  _you_ 'll stay in  _my_ arms, mon ange.  After all, the competition is fierce…”  His words made her think back on the previous night, when they’d shared their private heaven with Billy and Archie, and another wave of the nausea she’d felt before struck, making her whimper softly.  It hadn’t felt wrong at all when they were in the middle of things, but now that she’d regained use of her mental faculties it felt like she’d betrayed them somehow. Even if they hadn’t committed to each other, it felt wrong even having allowed someone else into their most intimate moment.  Gabriel, of course, noticed her whimper and instantly he looked her over in clear worry. “…T’es sûre que t’es pas malade, Sammy?”, Gabriel asked, his voice soft and concerned, and she sighed.

“Y-yeah.  …Gabriel, love, I… last night-”

“…Yeah.”, he said, sighing as well.  That one sound said it all: he sounded sad, even mournful, and Sam bit her lip nervously.  However, her lover spoke up again sooner than she could, and his words made it clear beyond any doubt why he’d sounded so mournful.  “…Look, we were both a little… hyped up… and we made some calls that were… questionable.  But…  _merde, Samantha, j’suis plus sûr maintenant que jamais._ ”, he admitted in a whisper.  “I want you in my life.   _You_ , not anyone else – not even Billy.  …Last night showed me that even more clearly.”, he said just when she meant to answer him – clearly, he thought that she wanted to say something else than she’d been intending.  “T’es ardente… t’es si _chaleureuse…_ I felt like I’d burn myself even touching ya, mon ange.  You’re the only fire I need in my life.  J’te confie ma vie… tous mes secrets, tous mes péchérs, tout  _moi-même_.  Everything I am – all the fucked up stuff but also all of the good that I’ve still got in me, all my sorrows, all my laughter.  From the dirty rotten surface to the soot-stained core of me.  Tout ça, c’est à toi.  Yours to have an’ treasure.  I know we… I know  _I_ promised not to ask for more than what you were willing to give, but there’s a part of me that’ll  _never stop fuckin’ hopin’ for more_.  Nous sommes des meilleurs amis, des amants, des amoureux même… et quand même, il y a une partie de mon coeur qui dit, qui  _crie_ , ‘c’est pas assez, c’sera jamais suffisante, j’ai besoin de  _tout ton être_ ’.  …Oh, Sammy, I want it all.  I get all these tastes of life with you by my side and it ain’t enough, it ain’t  _never enough_.  I don’t just wanna wake up next to you one or two nights out of seven, I want  _all seven_ of ‘em; I don’t just wanna be the one you sleep with most, I want to be the  _only one_.  …I… J’suis désolé si je te fait malheureuse en disant ce que je sens, mais… but I don’t want to be  _just_ a friend or  _just_ a lover… I wanna be everything to ya.  Because you are everything to me.  You’re my addiction, my religion and my life goal all in one.”  He didn’t allow her to speak even once, even though the flow of his words halted and restarted as erratically as his heartbeat was – and as  _hers_ was, even if  _he_ didn’t feel that.  Every word he spoke made Sam feel more and more filled with a slightly painful, dizzying, slightly nauseous suspense – though it was not the same nausea as she’d felt before.  Thinking of the previous night made her stomach feel unpleasantly unsettled; Gabriel’s words made her stomach feel  _fluttery and light_.  And yet, even if he had that effect on her, he didn’t stop, explaining his feelings further and expanding that dizzy, light feeling through her entire body, making her feel fuzzy and detached: “…I mean, I haven’t ever felt more in control of myself as right here an’ right now, Sammy.  I feel like I could pour away every drop of vanilla gin in the fuckin’ world and still never regret it.  Like I could break every match, every lighter, every last fire-making device in the entire world, ending with our Backburners, and I wouldn’t even blink.  Nobody matters as much as you do, and there’s sure as hell nothin’ that compares to you. …And I know that you need time to get over all the shit with your brother an’ your parents – and I’ll be here for ya, Sammy, just like now, just like I have been until now.”

“Gabriel…”, she said softly – and finally, her fellow pyro looked down at her, nodding as if to show that  _now_ she could speak her mind: clearly, he still expected disappointment, if his expression of mental steeling was any indication, and Sam was all too glad to betray his expectations for once.  “…Gabriel, mon amour…  I’m still heartbroken about Michael, and about my parents, yes.  And I’m still recovering from the pain they caused me, and the pain I caused myself by being an idiot and losing my job at the start of this year.  I made mistakes, I didn’t notice things…  But as for that last, I’m not the only one, clearly.  …Seriously, Gabriel, do you think I have slept with anyone apart from you in the past weeks?  Or  _at all_ since I joined BLU?  Do you think that I call you ‘mon amour’ because it’s cute?  …And even if you do think that, did you forget what I said that first night?  I don’t give myself up to just anyone.  …No, the reason why I brought last night up, Gabriel Dantan, you bloody  _perfect idiot of mine,_ is because I felt it was a mistake.  It felt wrong.  When we’re together, it should be just us two.  …And I…”  She sighed, unable to properly voice what was in her mind – when she took a few seconds to mentally order her thoughts, Gabriel didn’t speak, he merely kept his lips pressed against her forehead gently but with the air of a man waiting for either death sentence or pardon.  Finally, she was able to continue with some measure of calm in her voice: “…This started out as ‘let’s just be friends and see where the rest takes us’: well, uh, now we  _know_ where the rest takes us.  …Gabriel, I still want us to be friends, but I… I love waking up next to you, and falling asleep in your arms no matter how or when or where.  I loved it when we prepped the food together yesterday – and normally cooking is just another boring part of my job for me.  I genuinely love it when you hold me close like this and kiss me just wherever you can.  And there’s so much more that we still haven’t done, so many more things to discover about you – there’s no guarantee I’ll like all of them but I want to discover them nonetheless.”

“Like what?”, Gabriel asked, and Sam chuckled. He seemed a little oblivious that morning, or perhaps he simply felt like playing a little; whatever the case, she happily obliged and answered his question.

“…Like what your favourite pyjama is, or whether you’re rubbish at doing laundry… whether you’d be good with kids-”

“Lemme tell ya right now, I love kids, but I’ll have a fuckin’  _horrible_ time trying not to swear every damn second.”, he interrupted, grinning from ear to ear.  “Of course, the story would be different if they were  _our_ kids, then I’d clean up my language once and for a- _mmm?_ ”  Sam couldn’t help herself: Gabriel had spoken without thinking, she could tell from the way he airily waved around the hand that had been resting on her arm before, and he’d said it so casually, but the notion of children,  _their_ children, had her heart suddenly  _hurt_ with how _perfect_ that mental image was, and the only way to alleviate that hurt was to kiss Gabriel lightly but lovingly, surprising him.  “…Sammy?”

“Gabriel, I want to stop thinking in terms of ‘me and you’. I want it to be ‘us’ from here on. You want commitment?  Well, then… what’s keeping us?  I love you, and I want to grow old with you and have children with you and  _blow the world’s socks off with you by my side_. And I want you to be mine and mine alone, too.  You said you’re prepared to give everything up for me, right?  …Well, the same goes for me.  I’d give up what little I have for you; I’d carry your sins for you, each and every one, for the rest of my days, if it meant having you with me for just as long.  And, to be honest, I’d keep them even if we were to break up again because you deserve to be unburdened, mon amour.”  He grinned so broadly in the faint light coming from outside that she wondered whether his cheeks were cramping up before gently gathering her in his arms again and kissing her slowly, reveringly, his free hand just resting on her cheek loosely – and that alone, the fact that he now  _knew_ he didn’t have to hold her close for her to stay close, made her smile when they broke apart again.

“Je te jure, mon ange, ma Samantha à moi…  I swear I’m never gonna hurt you,  _never_. I may be a sinner but I’m not a moron, I’m never losing ya.”

“You’re not a sinner, Gabriel.  I mean, would an angel kiss a sinner?”, she said lightly, and he nodded, his tone serious but his eyes filled with joy.

“To absolve his sins, yes.”

“Then, my sweet sinner, I declare all your sins absolved, and all your dark days over.”  She kissed her lover – her  _partner_ , she amended, because they were more than mere lovers now, more than any term could accurately describe – and then again, and again, light kisses that were meant to show love rather than transmit desire. And she could have sworn that, in between those first few kisses they indulged in, Gabriel muttered just one little phrase.

“ _Amen_ to  _that._ ”

 

“Dante, son, yeh’re on a roll!  Hate tuh admit it, but yer weekend with Sam did yeh a world’a good…”, Grant said as Gabriel sagged against his dispenser, breathing in the pinkish medigas deeply to cleanse his lungs and heal his bruises from the inside out as well.  He’d indeed been fighting fiercely alongside the rest of his team, voicing no complaints about being sent back to Grant or spychecking around their defenses for a change. Most of that was caused by the fact that he felt like he had no reasons to complain about his lot – even if he and Sam were once again kept apart by their teams.

Every time he missed Sam, he just thought of their Sunday, which they’d spent together from dawn until dusk, when they’d had to say their goodbyes.  They had eaten a quiet, modest breakfast together at his desk, they’d talked about their week – and had resolved to meet again in the area between the two bases, where Sam showered, that Wednesday, which was only a day away, Gabriel mused with a somewhat eager grin – and had gone for lunch and an ice cream in the early afternoon.  And then – the thought still elated him to no end – Sam had convinced Grant and the rest of RED to let her and Gabriel cook together.  They’d spent nearly two hours chopping up vegetables, frying potatoes, baking veal chops and discussing spices – and discussing  _everything_ from their experiences cooking to the way they were enjoying working together as they were.  And when the rest of the team enjoyed the food they’d prepared together, they sat down together in the kitchen, apart from the others, and enjoyed their last few moments of calm eating the food they’d both poured their effort and energy into.  “…Gabe? Son, y’okay?”  Grant’s voice interrupted his thoughts, and he blinked, looking around in alarm.

“Hmmmhmm… mmm phmmnnn…  shhhhh, nmmm thrrrrrphmmmsssh?”, he asked, causing the engineer to shrug.

“Got the feelin’ Arsène’s hangin’ around here somewhere, but ‘s long as he ain’t sappin’ mah sentry or mah dispenser, an’ as long as he don’t backstab yew or me, ah could care less ‘bout him.  He could be standin’ right on top of mah head an’ ah still wouldn’t give a damn.  …So, yew okay, huh?”

“Hmmm phmmmnnn, rrrmmmhh…”, Gabriel said, nodding softly before lifting his mask and taking a few cleansing breaths. “…I’m fine, Grant.  Promise ya.”

“Well, if yeh’re sure… yeh were a li’l distracted ‘fore, son – try an’ keep yer head in the game, awright?  Wouldn’t want yer streak’a positive input stopped by getting a rocket tuh th’face when yeh were thinkin’ ‘bout yer weekend.”  The pyro snorted but didn’t argue, instead using his energy to check his flamethrower.  “…’Ere, son, figure yeh’re runnin’ on empty.”, Grant said, handing him a gasoline canister that Gabriel readily poured into the fuel tank of his Backburner.

“BLU team, beware, I am live again.”, Gabriel said softly to himself with a grin.  So far, he’d made a great tally: he’d burnt Arsène five times in two days, John had gone down screaming and writhing twice, Archie six times – of which two times were his own damn fault for  _trying to run away from him_  – and Dell had been his victim once as well. Sam had died by his hand once as well – she’d been shooting at him just when the round ended and allowed him to take his victory shot, fully expecting he’d use his Axtinguisher as he always did when he got the opportunity but instead getting a shot through the heart with his Detonator. The flare had exploded inside her and had caused her to go up in a flash, leaving nothing but ashes and the faintest smell of her shampoo in the air.

“…So, how were th’situation out there?”, Grant asked, showing him that there had once again been a moment of silence where he’d been lost in thought.  However, now, because of the question, Gabriel instantly had his mind settled on the matter at hand again.

“…We’re pushin’ our hardest but BLU’s got some fuckin’ tight defense plan.  Didn’t see Sammy, so I guess she’s put on defense together with Dell an’ Theo. They ain’t pushin’ at all, too. Just… Jane an’ Tavish are keepin’ us on our toes but in back, near their intel, they’re strong as  _shit_. I’d love to go in there an’ fry ‘em all but I’m bettin’ there’s a sentry posted at one entrance an’ Theo’s overseein’ the other.”

“Ah well, sounds like tuhday’s gon’ be a draw, then – if’n they ain’t sparin’ John or Tavish fer th’assault, we c’n easily build up our defenses too.  …So, yew stickin’ ‘round or yeh goin’ back tuh testin’ their defenses?”, the engineer asked, causing Gabriel to slip his mask back over his face after flashing him a grin.

“Hmmm shthhhnnn hrrrrr.  Shhhhhkh phrrrrr Hhhrshhhhhnnnn.  Khhhhhphh hrrrrr hhsssssshhh shhhhhphhhhh….”

“Ah kin keep mahself safe jus’ fine, son, yeh jus’ don’t wan’ get killed tuhday.”, Grant mused, chuckling along with Gabriel and allowing the pyro to lean against his dispenser, placing his elbow on top of the heart monitor that peeked out of the top.  A sigh escaped him, sounding muffled due to the gas mask that muted his every sound, but the engineer picked up on it and nudged him gently with his elbow. “…Yew thinkin’ this ‘s boring, son?”

“Hhh mmnnnnh.  Hhhshhhhth vhhhhshhhnnn hhh khhhhthh phhhhth Shhhmmmmn nnnnhhh. Phhhshhhhrrr hh hmmmm.”

“Thinkin’ of ‘er, huh?  Well, ‘s still a long week yet tuh go, Gabe, son-”

“Hhh khhhhvh, phhhth hhh khhth phhhhhshhhhnnshhh. Phrrrr hrrrr hhh’thh vhhhhth phrrrrvhrr. Mmmmnn hhhhshhhh thh phhhh.”, Gabriel admitted with another sigh, and Grant rolled his eyes.

“Son, tha’ sounded sappy ‘s all sheeyit.  Maybe ah better let yeh return t’battle, ‘fore yeh start goin’ all dewy-eyed on me ‘ere.  Go on,  _git_.”, he said teasingly, shooing the pyro away from his dispenser.  Gabriel took a few steps towards the exit, grinning – but when he turned around, that grin died on his features.  Arsène stood behind Grant, gracefully pulling his thin dagger from the engineer’s back and wiping it clean calmly, while the engineer’s sentry stood next to him unresponsively, a sapper on top of it.

“You ‘ad better run, Gabriel, zey are comink-”, the BLU spy started, only for his words to end in a pained scream: it took Gabriel three steps to close the distance and douse the spy in flames, after which he dropped his flamethrower, took out his Axtinguisher and swung it with both hands into the spy’s back, ending the man’s life instantly and causing his body to sag into a smouldering, blood-soaked heap.  After that, Gabriel groaned, knowing full well what the spy had meant.  He could hear the rattle of Yaroslav’s gun growing nearer as well as the quick paces of Archie and the somewhat heavier footfalls of Siegfried, seemingly coming his way unimpeded.  And – his heart ached when he realized – the fast and soft footsteps of Sam, who had clearly left her spot near Dell in favor of going on the offense.  And then, voices.

“…Vhere ist Arszene?  He vos suppozed to meet us here…”

“Does it mattah?  I ain’t hearin’ no sentry-”

“Phhh khhrrrphmmm, Hhhrshhhh… Khrrrmmmnth hhsssh nnnphrrrr hhhmmmnn, mmmphhh Khhphrrrmm hhssh shhthmmm hhnn thrrrrr…” Looking around himself, Gabriel quickly conceived a plan.  Grant’s dispenser was untouched, and the medigas on it was freely flowing around him, making him feel like he could withstand at least a short while of Yaroslav’s fire but not a combined attack from the heavy  _and_ the scout  _and_ his fellow pyro.  So the trick was to find a way to lure them into attacking one by one, or to hold off their attack until Grant was back for building a new sentry.  “Hhh khnnnn khhh hmmmth shhhh-”

“Nah, ya gotta stick with us, Sammy.”, Archie said, causing Gabriel to almost groan before catching himself.  His flamethrower was still mostly full but if they came inside the intel room, he had to make sure to kill them as soundlessly as he could.  His Axtinguisher seemed to be the best choice.  And when Archie spoke up again, he grinned manically under his gas mask. “…Lemme go an’ case out the joint, awrigh’?”  He heard the scout’s quick footsteps grow near again and ducked next to the dispenser, pressed against the wall so Archie would hopefully pass him by without seeing him; when the scout ran obliviously past him, he took the one step that ended him up behind him and swung the axe down with both hands, embedding the axe so deep inside the scout’s torso that his chest nearly  _exploded_ in blood. Pulling the axe to the side sharply, he cut off the surprised cry that Archie had meant to let out, turning it into an almost inaudible gurgle and at the same time freeing his axe up again. Seconds passed in silence until Sam’s deep, loud sigh and Yaroslav’s stating the obvious.

“Gavriel in there, got little scout.  We valk in there, kill Danti?”

“Hhhh, nhhhh.”  A short shuffle indicated that Sam had put her Backburner down and was shifting her weight, but then her voice sounded as clearly as if she spoke right next to him.  “…I’m not yet tired of my life.  If Gabriel’s in there, he  _isn’t alone_.  I mean, we didn’t see doctor Hartmann-”

“Rudolf, in zhere, wizh Dante?  Highly unlikely.”

“Yeah, but do you want to run the risk, Siegfried?”, Sam asked, and the doctor groaned.

“Ve haff gotten ourzelves in a dangerous sizhuazion. …Vizhout Archie to explore for us, ve are slow-”

“Little pyro is not slow!  Little pyro is fast, like boolit, she can  _outrun Danti_ , da?”, the heavy weapons expert interrupted, talking with clear excitement in his voice; Sam’s answer was equally eager.

“Heh, don’t think Gabriel’s going to like you saying it or me confirming it, but yes, I can outrun Gabriel in close quarters.  If I’m lucky.”  Gabriel used the moment to refuel quickly with the gasoline can that stood right next to the dispenser, estimating his odds.  Sam  _was_ faster than him, but he had a dispenser standing by his side to heal him if she did manage to hurt him.  However, without Grant there to fix the dispenser, it wouldn’t last longer than ten seconds in constant exposure from Sam’s Backburner, and if the dispenser was gone, he was as good as dead against Yaroslav and Siegfried. All in all, things looked bleak for him. “…Hhhrrhhhth…”  Sam had clearly slipped her gas mask on again, since her voice was muffled, and her footsteps drew closer as she slowly and cautiously made her way into the intel room.  “Khhhphrrrrmmm… Khhhphrrrrrmmmm…”, she muttered in a sing-song voice, as if challenging him to attack her the moment he saw her.  But he had different plans.  Sam was walking in on her guard, so he couldn’t hope to surprise her like he had surprised Archie, but she was also nervous about confronting him, that much was sure… and from the sounds of it, she had her flamethrower in her hands, which was a bulky thing.  If he startled her enough…  The moment he saw the nozzle of her flamethrower, he grabbed hold of the metal and pulled her into the room, effectively keeping the spurt of flames away from the dispenser and at the same time exposing Sam, who had stumbled right in front of him, to a swing of his Axtinguisher.  The axehead didn’t fully cut through the thick material of the fireproof suit, but it still bruised her back hard and one of the corners had indeed pierced the fabric and embedded itself into her body, causing her to shriek in pain.  “Shhhhth!!”

“Hhhh nhhhh!”, he said softly as she reached for her other weapons, pulling his own axe loose and swinging it down full force into her stomach: this time, the sheer force of the blow was enough to send it clean through the suit and deep into the body it protected, making Sam utter a shrill sound that even the gas mask didn’t properly muffle.

“ _GUUUUUUUUUUHHHH!!_ ”

“Shhhss thsssmmmm…”, he ground out, watching her reach for him in vain as he took out her shotgun and took one shot at her at close range, splattering her blood over the floor and over the tips of his boots. “Mmmrrrth… Sshhrrrrmm, mmmnnn hhnnnnnnshhh…”  He looked at the entrance, where Yaroslav came trudging up to him, minigun spinning and finger on the trigger, and he took a deep breath, ready to feel the bullets tear his body apart… but nothing came.  Instead, the bulky Russian sagged forward, losing his grip on Sasha, his expression one of shock, and as he fell, Pierre came in view.  Pulling off his mask, Gabriel spoke to him. “Pierre, I thought you were over on the other side?”

“…Zey found me out and sent me to respawn – zere, I met Grant ‘o ‘ad also just returned.  ’E sent me, mon ami.  Siegfried died wizzout zee sound, and Yaroslav deedn’t suspect a sink.  …Zey ‘ad found an ‘ole een our defenses, eet seems – an ‘ole we now ‘ave feexed.  Grant-”  The sound of an explosion sounded from within the intelligence room, and Gabriel looked around in alarm before Pierre shook his head.  “Grant ‘as asked me to tell you to come to ‘im een zee corridor leading to zee center of zee battlefield, where ‘e ees now buildink ‘is new sentry. Zat was probablement ‘im, remotely deestroyink ‘is dispenser.”

“Okay, I’m goin’.  …Hey, uh, thanks a bundle, Pierre.  Sans ton secours, j’étais foiré.”, Gabriel said softly, and the spy smiled at him as he disappeared into the background again.

“You would ‘ave saved me from zat fate too, mon ami.” Gabriel rolled his eyes and slipped his mask back over his face, running to find the engineer again so he could keep him safe from Arsène again.

 

“…We should probably go back to our rooms again…”, Sam said, quickly putting on her pyjama bottom on again, feeling remorseful for breaking the tender moment she and Gabriel were sharing.  Her fellow pyro groaned but didn’t protest, showing her that she was at least not wrong about the fact that they were treading on thin ice.  “Archie’s covering for me but I don’t want to burden him too much.  I already owe him for not boasting about last Saturday night to the team-”

“He knows better than to do  _that_ , mon ange, if he even  _thought_ about it I’d kill him.  Then respawn him, then kill him again, and so on.  He’d  _wish_ he hadn’t even met ya before we were even on to round five.”, Gabriel interjected almost casually, cracking his knuckles before getting up from the ground and stretching the rest of his limbs, which Sam rewarded by looking him over.

“…As much as it pains me to say my goodbyes to you, my love, especially with the way you look right now…”

“Yeah, yeah, j’sais que je t’intéresse bien… I think we proved that only half an hour ago.”, he admitted, grinning from ear to ear and causing her to do the same.

“And half an hour before that, and before  _that_ … But now I’ve got to turn my back on all of that and go back to the harsh reality that is life in the dustbowl.” Her boyfriend huffed at that, something for which she couldn’t fault him, not the way she felt about having to leave him again for another night of loneliness; but then, he spoke, surprising her.

“Well, excuse me for sayin’ it blunt, but  _reality fuckin’ sucks._ Why’s it have to be reality and not just fucked up that we’re in love an’ yet have gotta spend our time apart?  We’ve literally got our teams standin’ between us!”

“Yes, but what can we do?  Complain to the Administrator-General?  She’d support Dell and Grant on this.  Quit?  You can’t, and I won’t.  This job is the only way I can have you in my life for now.  …And what else is there to do but to protest in ways that won’t get us in trouble?”, Sam said softly, taking Gabriel’s hand – when he pulled her against him, she wasn’t surprised, but as he spoke, she gradually found her heart leaping up at his words.

“J’sais, ouais, mais pas parler c’est pire qu’être mépris par Grant et Dell.  I can take makin’ those fuckin’ southern connards angry, or livid enough to kick us off the teams; I can take the Administrator-General throwin’ me back in prison; but this havin’ to miss you ‘cause they want their fuckin’ beauty sleep is  _horrible_.  And I’m  _done_ hidin’ us from the rest of the world.  It’s about fuckin’ time Dell and Grant started facin’ the fact that we’re not just fuckin’ each other for shits an’ giggles.  It’s time everyone knows we’re damn serious about each other!”

“I agree.  But let’s tell the teams about us when we’re at the bar, this weekend-”

“Not this weekend, remember?”, Gabriel quickly interjected, causing Sam to blink until the fact seeped through the contented haze that still lay over her mind.

“Oh, yeah, the visitor’s day – well, I daresay you’ll have something else entirely on your mind, mon amour.  My brother Damien will be visiting with his girlfriend, Katrin – and he’ll probably be wanting to have a talk to you.”

“I’ll bet he’ll wanna.”, Gabriel reacted drily, though he smiled the next moment as he put his sleeveless shirt back on. “…So, how worried do I have to be?”

“Well, since he’s the only family I have left nowadays and I’m the only sibling of his that is still alive, not to mention I’m his baby sister…  _be very afraid,_ monsieur Dantan, he’s not going to spare you.”

“Ah, oui, le frère protecteur…  I think I can handle bein’ grilled by a guy that’s got your best interests at heart – it’s what I have at heart, too, after all. But, uh…  Is he a lot older ‘n you, then?  You an’ your brother Michael, you were the late babies an’ he a very early one?”

“Well, not really – we’re all seven years apart, so Damien’s seven years older than me.”  She could see Gabriel doing the math in his head, looking a little put off, and his tone was hesitant when he spoke again.

“…Thirty-one?  Four years  _younger_  than me?”  His question was rhetorical, but the question he actually implied had her pale just a little. He meant the age difference, of course – because Gabriel and her were eleven years apart, which didn’t matter to them but would surely be a painful issue to Damien – but she hadn’t taken into account that Gabriel was even older than Damien by four years.

“Oh god, I hadn’t considered that.  Y-yes, Damien’s four years younger than you are.”

“Ah,  _merde_ , so in three days I’ll meet my girlfriend’s successful businessman older brother who is  _still younger than me_ … merde, j’ai pas la moindre chance de lui convaincre que mes intentions avec toi sont que pures et honorables, ou non?”

“Well, I’m afraid that ship has not only sailed, mon amour, it’s already way past the horizon.  He knows that I’ve gotten my hands on you, or you on me, whichever he would like to think.”  Catching Gabriel’s dismayed look, she quickly and soothingly added: “But he also knows that I’m outspoken and very passionate about my life and preferences, so he won’t start thinking you spoiled me or something equally inane.”  She smiled, thinking about her brother and the way he’d sounded in his last telephone call, when he spoke about Katrin and their dates; Gabriel caught her smile and mirrored it back at her.

“…J’ai pas peur de ton frère, mon ange.  Though I’d prefer it if he gave us his blessin’.” Sam couldn’t help but giggle softly at the mention of Damien giving them their blessing: she would prefer having her brother’s approval as well, but the way her fellow pyro had said it made it sound old-fashioned.  Gabriel rolled his eyes and pulled her against him again, kissing the top of her head before giving her a light kiss on her lips as well.  “…What?  I’m a little old-fashioned when it comes to givin’ my heart away, so what?  T’es surprise, mon ange?”

“Well, yes, it’s hard to believe the same man that just said ‘screw the teams, I’m not hiding away anymore’ wants my brother to give us  _permission_ to be together-”, Sam admitted, and Gabriel snorted.

“Well, there’s a difference between wanting your brother’s blessing, mon ange douce, and listening to him if he tells us not to see each other anymore.  Quand il ose dire ça, il peut se faire foutre comme tous les autres.”  Then, suddenly, Gabriel gave her a shy grin.  “…Mais j’veux parler de nous à tout le monde. Your brother, my doctor-” Suddenly, he paused, causing Sam to blink and look up at him to see that he had a pensive expression suddenly.

“…What’s the matter?”

“Oh, rien, I just remembered… you’re gonna meet my psych, doc Hayakawa.  Heh, she’s gonna  _love_ meeting  _you._ Last time I saw her, a little over two months ago, I was talkin’ to her about how I fell for ya.”

“Yes, you told me – she’s the one that asked you ‘who would you miss the most’ and got you to answer that it’d be me.  In a way, she got all of this started, so I suppose it’ll be nice for me to meet the woman that brought us together.”, she said, motioning for the room they were in and the way they stood in it, pressed together like only people in love could stand.  “…So, what’s she like?”

“She’s kinda young.  Still older than you, though.  My age, I think, maybe a year or two younger.  Fuckin’ ugly, if that’s what you were wonderin’.”, he added, causing Sam to laugh loudly.

“I wasn’t exactly wondering  _that,_ no, but thanks for the reassurance, mon amour.”

“…Yeah, what else… well, she’s managed to survive ten years of  _me_ , so there’s that…  She’s a strong woman, really.  Takes all of my sins in stride, doesn’t judge me when I admit I lit somethin’ the fuck up again, doesn’t deprecate me for drinkin’ myself silly. She doesn’t like – or, well,  _didn’t_ like – me tellin’ her about my sleepin’ around habits, though, that was a bridge too damn far for her.”

“Does she come here out of a professional habit or because she wants to visit you?”, Sam asked lightly, causing a sigh to slip past Gabriel’s guard.

“…Bit of both, I’d like to imagine.  She  _always_ comes for the visitor’s day, hasn’t missed a day since I started.”  Stretching again, he tried to find a more comfortable way to drape his arms around her before continuing: “…She’s gotta evaluate me, as well as my living conditions and my battle performance, twice a year, so she likes to use a fixed occasion for that.  The visitor’s day is always in the last week of summer, and she also likes to come visit in February or March as well, so…  But anyway, elle est agréable, t’vas le voir, and you’ll like her, I’m sure! Last visitor’s day she was tellin’ me about her li’l girl – she’s got a daugher, ya know, that just started preschool last year – so we don’t always talk shop.”  Grinning, he added: “And this year, we’re sure as hell not gonna talk shop right away.  I’m introducin’ you to her, and I’d love for you to be there when she abducts me for my mandatory psych evaluation.  I-if she’ll allow ya to be there, of course.  I’ve got nothin’ to hide from you, mon ange.”

“I’d love to be there for you when you talk to her.”, Sam admitted, and for a while they stood in silence, just cherishing each other’s proximity.  However, slowly but surely, another thought dawned to Sam.  “…Gabriel, I am glad that you get your psychiatrist to come at the visitor’s day.  I mean, it would be sad if you had no one, especially since everyone else gets visitors. Even Theo and Chris get their mothers over here.”

“Ouais…  I do like not havin’ to be fuckin’ alone on a day like visitor’s day.”, her lover admitted, but she pressed on, determined to voice her thought.

“Did you ever try to contact your father or sister?” Gabriel didn’t tense, like she’d feared, but he did sigh sorrowfully.

“J’ai essayé, oui… I did try, especially in the first two years I was here – after that, I just… gave up hope, I guess. Or maybe givin’ up beat havin’ to face their anger for running away from ‘em.  It sure beats havin’ to hear your family say they don’t want you in their lives anymore.”  He scratched the burn scars on his hand, showing to Sam that a lot of his previous fires had been started because of how much he missed his father and sister, and then swallowed the lump that had evidently risen in his throat to speak on: “…I s’pose it’s better comme ci… j’ai plus de place dans leur vies, donc pourquoi continuer à essayer de leur retrouver?  I don’t even know where to start…”

“Well, Gabriel, if they didn’t shun you out of their lives, there’s still hope.”, Sam admitted – her fellow pyro looked down at her intensely suddenly, as if trying to push the words out of her with sheer willpower, and she smiled softly as she continued: “…You maybe don’t know where to start but my brother, Damien, frequently visits Canadian companies. He’s been in Ontario for two weeks last month, which is why I didn’t hear from him for a while.  As a matter of fact, half of his business trips are to Canada, because he’s been heavily involved in the setup of the Canadian branch of Neoplast and in their branching out all over Canada.  If anyone knows how to get something done there, anyone that’s at liberty to help you, it’ll be him.  And if his sister asks him nicely if he could help you…”  Gabriel looked eager to just outright say ‘yes’ to her offer – his face lit up at the thought of speaking to his father and his older sister again – but still he sounded hesitant when he spoke the next second.

“…But what if they don’t want me in their lives anymore?  Ça me détruira, mon ange.”

“Well, but what if they just moved?  What if all they’ve wanted for ten years was to hear from you again?  What if they’re ready to receive you back in their lives with open arms and all that keeps you apart is the fact that you both lost touch?  …Even if they say that they’re angry at you for what you did, they would never push you out of their lives completely.  Trust me, Gabriel.  …And if they  _do_ get angry and push you away, I’ll be here with you. I’ll be right beside you, holding you and telling you that it’ll be okay, no matter what the outcome.”  She could see him form the decision, read the moment when the balance tipped to nodding and taking the risk from his face even before he spoke.

“…Okay then.   _We_ 'll ask your brother if he can help.  J'aimerais les parler de nouveau… damn it, even if they're gonna cuss me out, I still wanna talk to them, just hear their voices one last time…” Slowly, he started grinning, broadly and lovingly, and when he leaned down to kiss her she gladly let him, feeling elated as well by the possibility that Gabriel could get in touch with his father and his sister again.  “…Mon ange, do you really have to go?  Not that I wanna go again, but… j'veux me réveiller dans tes bras, Samantha, juste ce seule fois…”, he whispered in the quiet around them, and she sighed, relenting.

“…Well, I do sleep better with you than when I sleep alone…”, she admitted, not feeling up to denying him  _and_ herself the one thing they needed most.  “…Okay, come on then, mon amour, or we won’t wake up in time for battle tomorrow…”

 

“ _Git’cher ass back here righ’ dayum now, Gabriel Dawntahn, or so help me Gawd ah’m gon’ shoot y’in the back!_ ”  Gabriel didn’t even pause, nearly kicking open the door leading outside.  He was fresh out of patience with Grant Dillinger, the object of the mental curses he was indiscriminately flinging around and the mental images of unmitigated cruelty he indulged in.  The engineer had brought it on himself, he mused as he stomped through the door: who in their right mind would suggest keeping him apart from Sam even  _longer_ just so she could focus on  _making sandwiches for the visitors’ day?!_  “Gabriel!!  Ah ain’t kiddin’!!”, Grant called after him, and Gabriel didn’t break stride as he answered in kind.

“Vas t’foutre, Grant, toi et la reste des salauds d’notr’équipe!  You have got to be a fuckin’ moron if ya believe anything you do is gonna keep me away from Sammy now.  I don’t give a fuck about goddamn  _sandwiches,_ so  _take a fuckin’ hike_!”

“Don’t yeh talk tuh me like that, yeh yellah, disrespectful-”

“ _Go to hell, Grant_ , maybe the devil gives a damn about your goddamn sandwiches-”

“ _Guys!!!_ ”  The shrill exclamation caused Gabriel to stop altogether, only then noticing how he’d already walked over to the BLU side of the compound, a feat further evidenced by Sam standing in front of him with a dishtowel over her shoulder and detergent foam up to her elbows.  “Please stop your  _yelling_ , some of us have actual work to do and want it done as soon as possible!”

“Sammy, Grant expects us to sleep alone tonight because of some stupid fuckin’ sandwiches-”, Gabriel started, his tone pleading – he knew better than to mess with Sam’s clearly brittle patience, which she evidenced by placing her hands on her hips – but Grant clearly didn’t catch the anger in the female pyro’s voice, because his tone was still irate as he interrupted.

“Them sandwiches are our food fer t’morrah afternoon – fer us an’ our visitors – so they ain’t ‘stupid’ an’ Sam needs tuh-”

“ _Sam_ needs to  _have a talk to Grant about his priorities._ ”, Sam cut him off, grabbing one of the engineer’s arms and pulling him inside urgently, deaf to his protests; Gabriel followed her before she even reached out to grab his arm, knowing that his girlfriend had a lot of strength in her hands and not feeling in the mood for a bruised biceps.  The three of them walked into the BLU dining room, where Dell sat at the table reading a book about advanced logarithmic functions and n-th degree equations.  “Dell, your colleague not only comes up here to argue with Gabriel and disturb the peace and quiet for all of us, but he also thinks  _he_ can tell  _me_ what I do or do not need to do for tomorrow’s visitor’s day. Normally, I’d hit him for that, but since I think you can talk some sense into him… here you go. Talk some bloody  _sense_ into that thick skull of his, and then send him back to his side of the base, because I don’t want to hear whatever he has to say for himself.  …Gabriel, I’m not done with my dishes yet, you’ll have to wait for a second.  You can go to my room if you’d like – or, well, I think Archie’s still packing some stuff he wants to take to Billy though, so maybe just come sit in the kitchen?”

“Now, Sammy, don’t let yerself git distracted, y’hear?”, Dell reacted – Gabriel meant to respond to that and say that he wouldn’t distract his girlfriend, not if that meant her work took even longer to finish, but Sam beat him to it.

“Dell, you know, we can  _work together_ , without ‘getting distracted’, okay?  Now please talk to Grant about what I said before and get him to drop whatever grudge he has against Gabriel unless he wants to end up waking up in the medbay with his brains scrambled like eggs.”

“Sam, pardner, ah’d like tuh see yeh try- _aaaahgaaaaawd!!_ ”  The RED engineer clearly had less common sense than a sponge, Gabriel mused: Sam took three steps towards the man, hoisted him up over her shoulders, carried him into the kitchen and stuffed all five feet of him into an empty cupboard, closing the door and locking it before tossing the key onto the kitchen table. Grant’s shouts sounded muffled from inside the thick wood.  “ _Gwwwd dmmmmnnnt Smmmnnnthhhhhh!!  Lmmmmm hhhhttt!!”_

“…Are ya goin’ to let him break that cabinet?”, Gabriel asked as Sam instantly turned back to her dirty dishes, sticking her hands into the diminished foam again while she snorted and replied.

“I’d like to see him try, that’s steel-plated. Used to be a strongbox.  Now we use it for liquor, like Tav’s scrumpy, Dell’s Walker, and the occasional bottle of Violetta for yours truly.”  She aimed a half-hearted kick at the door that caused a muffled exclamation from inside, either plea or curse.  “It’s airconditioned, too, so I think Grant’ll have no choice but cool down in there.”

“Sammy, li’l lady, don’t yeh think ‘s a little harsh, lockin’ him inside tha’?”, Dell said softly from inside the dining room, probably trying his hardest not to upset her out of fear for being stuffed inside with his fellow engineer.  “…Ah mean, he prob’ly didn’t mean nothin’ by it…”

“Yeah, well, he’s not going to die from sitting in there for fifteen more minutes, either – maybe next time, he’ll think before trying to get me and Gabriel to give up our weekend together.”  However, she suddenly paused, looking at her fellow pyro, causing Gabriel to feel a little self-conscious again.  “…Gabriel, mon amour, I talked to Dell: since you’re here instead of on RED’s side of the base as usual, I thought it’d be wonderful if you could help me make the sandwiches for tomorrow’s visitors’ day-”

“Mais oui!  ’Course I’ll help ya, Sammy, mon ange, you don’t even have to ask.  Dell, t’peut être sûr que moi et ma chérie vont travailler fort.”, he said with a broad grin at the BLU engineer, who chuckled in reply.

“Heh, yeh’d better, son, don’t want them visitors comin’ after yeh.  …So, uh, Sammy, li’l lady, ‘s yer brother comin’ tuh see yeh?”  Sam’s nod was accompanied by a slight smile as she clearly thought about the fact that she’d see her brother again.  “…Bet he’s lookin’ forward tuh it, ain’t he?”

“Oh, yes…”, Sam said, abandoning her previous ill temper in favor of a somewhat dreamy look that suited her so well, Gabriel’s heart gave a little squeeze.  “He’s called me twice this week – Tuesday morning to ask me for the address again, and then again yesterday evening to ask whether he needed to bring us something.  I told him that gifts are always appreciated, so he’s going to go to this bakery near his office, where they make the most delicious cheesecakes if you can take his word for it-”

“An’ how’s he feel ‘bout meetin’ Gabe?”, Dell asked, causing Gabriel to wince pre-emptively until Sam chuckled and he found himself relaxing again.

“Well, he’s eager, naturally, to meet the man that’s got his sister’s heart in his big, scarred, firestarting hands…”

“Yeah, wait until he hears how old I am, then he’s  _really_ gonna have me killed.”, Gabriel said emphatically, though he smiled as he spoke and winked at Sam.  “I ain’t countin’ on livin’ long anymore, Dell, mon ami.”

“…Why’s yer age matter?”, the engineer asked, nonplussed; Sam rolled her eyes but didn’t speak, clearly leaving it up to Gabriel to explain himself.

“…Sam’s only twenty-four, Dell, she’s eleven years younger than me, and her brother’s thirty-one.  I’m older than  _both of ‘em_.  Not an expert, but I don’t think her protective older brother’s gonna like her regularly getting some from a man older ‘n him.”  Dell nodded, scratching the back of his head as he pondered the situation.

“Yeah, ah see why yeh’re nervous ‘bout meetin’ Sammy’s brother.  Ah’d worry too if’n ah were in yer shoes.  …Yew done, Sam?”, he asked, and Sam sighed, dropping the dishtowel on the kitchen table.

“Yeah.  I know what you’re going to say, too… Grant, you can come out if you promise to  _keep your mouth shut_ all the way back to RED side – I don’t care how hard you yell over there, but over here you’re quiet and respectful, just like Gabriel is-”

“You’d better be fuckin’ respectful to Sammy, too, or I’m givin’ ya  _reason_ to yell.”, Gabriel added, grabbing the key and opening the cupboard door to find Grant awkwardly squeezed in the slightly cold cabinet.  “One refrigerated Georgian engineer.”

“Suhmantha Tennant, yew-”, Grant started, only to yelp and go quiet when the BLU pyro grabbed his arm again.

“ _You_ are going back to RED side and  _you_ are going to stay there until tomorrow morning when the visitors are due.  And  _I_ am going to my room now with Gabriel – Dell, tomorrow morning at eight sharp, there is going to be a stack of sandwiches on this dining room table ready to be packed outside.”

“Ah’m countin’ on it, li’l lady.  Grant, pardner, think we all know keepin’ these two apart in th’weekends’s ain’t never gon’ work out – c’mon, ah’ll walk back with’cha tuh yer side, ah got somethin’ ah needed t’ask yeh anyhow…”, the engineer said, pulling his slightly shivering colleague along.  As soon as both men were out the door, Gabriel turned to Sam, smiling broadly.

“…Donc, we should get an early night – if ya look tired tomorrow when your brother’s here, he’s gonna skin me alive.”

“Damien’s perfectly civil, Gabriel, mon amour… and besides, he knows better than to judge  _you,_ you’re over a head taller than he is and four years older, you can do whatever you please.”

“Ah, mais ce qui me plaît, c’est te plaire, mon ange.”, he said, pulling her closer and kissing her lightly on the cheek, something she mirrored before winking at him.

“…Well, I’m sure we can explain away any and all fatigue we have with those sandwiches…”

“Now you’re talkin’, ma chérie maline…”, he said warmly, allowing her to gently pull on his hand to get him moving to her room.


	22. Like I've never been hurt before (Visitor's Day part 1)

“...Oh merde...”  Sam clearly had to hold back laughter, Gabriel noticed as he was standing at the bathroom mirror, his face lathered liberally in shaving cream.  “...Putain, why the fuck did I decide it'd be a good damn idea to shave usin' an actual _mirror_ for once?”

“It was your own idea, Gabriel, mon amour.”, she said mirthfully, shaking her head as Gabriel glared at the razor in his hands with unwonted venom.

“Merde, oui, n'me rappele pas...  D'you know what the worst of it is?”, he said as he turned his back to the mirror ostensibly before shaving in smooth, easy drags of the razor: he didn't wait for her to even nod before continuing.  “...It's that now I'm meetin' your brother, suddenly I _give a fuck_ about the way I fuckin' look.  That's-”

“That's normal.”, Sam said, with a smile, and he nodded, smiling back for a second before his thought swept him away again.

“Ouais, but now he's gonna think I'm well-groomed, and I'm not, and then if he sees me again next time he'll maybe be disappointed if I ain't as well-behaved...”  He started trailing off when Sam gently put her hands on his shoulders, looking at her with clear appreciation for her nudity though he still held his razor.

“Gabriel, Damien isn't going to say a thing about how well-behaved or badly behaved you are.  He wouldn't dare.  Besides, it's _me_ you've got to mind, not _him_.”  Gabriel allowed himself a second to turn back to the mirror, finding that he didn't object to its presence now that it allowed him to see the entirety of his girlfriend's gorgeous, freshly showered body.  “...Don't you dare shave off that goatee, Gabriel, I like it.”, she said as he mindlessly brought his razor to his chin, and he instantly halted, grinning sheepishly.

“T'es un danger pour mes sens quand tu te balades toute nue devant moi, mon ange.”  Sam's light laughter preceded her walking away again to wrap her body in a large towel, and that was the sign for Gabriel to reapply himself to shaving, finding that it was easier now that he was distracted.  “Bon... now, a shower for me, and I'm all done and ready to see your brother.”

“I daresay you'll at least be _more_ ready to meet Damien – all I'm concerned about is whether _he_ is ready for meeting _you_ , mon amour.”, Sam said, prompting a light chuckle out of Gabriel.  It was meant to be teasing, he knew, but she did have a point.  Would Damien be prepared for meeting him?

“...Uh, Sammy, maybe it's gonna be easier for everyone if ya tell me what you told him about me.  Juste pour savoir qu'est-ce que je peux lui parler.”  He left the 'and what I'm not supposed to talk about' part unsaid but knew that his girlfriend, amazing as she was, understood perfectly; she got a pensive expression again as she turned to him, looking without seeing.

“...Well, let's see... he knows how you looked up my room number at the hospital.  Oh, god, and the caramel, he had a _field day_ when you sent that, kept teasing me for the entire _week_ about how 'oh, sure, the man that sent you alcohol-infused sweets is _just your friend_ '...  He knows you're taller than him... he _doesn't_ know you're _older_ than him-”

“Don't remind me...”, Gabriel groaned, tilting his head back and allowing the shower water to spray over his face.

“...let's see, what else does Damien know?  Oh, uh, maybe it's best not to mention those three weeks, he was _upset_ when he got my messages and heard from the Administrator that I had an 'accident with tranquilizers and alcohol'-”

“Oh, merde, don't worry, I don't like thinkin' about that, and I'm sure as hell not gonna talk to your brother about that.  J'le regrettes moi-même, j'étais un tel idiot...”, Gabriel muttered, shaking his head and then reaching down to grab his shampoo only to find a more slender hand close on the bottle before his: blinking to clear the water from his eyes and his lashes, he saw Sam stand next to him, pouring shampoo over her hands and motioning for him to lean down so she could wash his hair, something he gladly did.  Instantly, when her fingertips massaged his scalp, he felt a calm fall over him like a blanket, soothing his nerves and making his worries flee.  “Mmmm, mon ange, que ça me fait calme...  Tes mains sont si douces...”, he spoke slowly, and Sam clearly grinned by the sound of her voice as she answered.

“Well, I'm glad the first time I washed someone else's hair is such an unmitigated success, mon amour... do you want me to keep talking about all of the things I've told Damien about you?”

“Ouais... otherwise I'll die of nerves when he gets here...”, Gabriel admitted, enjoying the feeling of Sam's hands slowly lathering up his hair as she spoke.

“...He knows you're a pyromaniac, but he doesn't judge.  He knows you drink a lot, and that you slept around a lot.  He knows you were together with Billy – which is why he was surprised at first, when I told him that the rest of the team was concerned about us being friends.”

“Nos équipes sont des fils de garce – or, well, most of 'em.  Billy an' Archie are okay, and Dell and Grant aren't that bad either, if only they'd get their heads out of their fuckin' _asses_...”, Gabriel muttered, causing Sam to laugh and her hands to leave his scalp so she could rinse the foam off them.  “...Mmhmm, je pense que tu devras me laver les cheveux toujours dès maintenant, mon ange – I swear, my head's never felt cleaner-”

“And your thoughts never dirtier, huh?”, Sam guessed with a wink he didn't even have to see.

“Well, _now_ they are kind of dirty, yeah.  Mais n'importe – we've got to keep our minds _outta_ the gutter for the day.  Or at least for the next twelve hours – after that, I can't make any more promises...”  Grinning, he reached for his soap while he spoke on, stepping out of the shower's spray for a minute to wash himself.  “...So, what else does Damien know?”  Somehow, his question caused Sam to laugh lightly again, which led to him following up somewhat confusedly: “...Quoi?”

“Oh, no, it's just... you pronounce his name the French way, 'dah-mjen', but I think he prefers the English pronunciation, 'day-me-yun'.”

“Damien... Well, _damn_ , I'm bound to slip up somewhere during the day, I hope he's forgiving.”, Gabriel admitted with a soft sigh, lifting up his left leg to allow him to wash his foot.  “...Donc, quoi d'autre, mon ange?  I wanna be _prepared_.”

“Oh, just bits and pieces... and, well, I don't want you to worry overmuch but he _does_ know that you've been in my bed more than out of it in the past month and a half....”  That prompted a groan out of Gabriel, who stepped back underneath the shower to rinse himself off.  Of course it was true, but if Sam's brother took objection to the fact that she regularly slept with a man that was over a decade older than her, he'd be in trouble, not to mention being together with Sam would feel awkward knowing that the most important man in her life didn't accept him being a part of her life as well.  “...Gabriel, you're worrying again, aren't you?”, Sam asked softly, causing Gabriel to turn and look at her in slight embarrassment.

“Yeah...  Sammy, what if your brother won't accept us bein' together?  I mean, it isn't like he don't have plenty of reasons... and it isn't like I've got any _experience_ with how he's supposed to react here, either, I haven't had that many relationships in my life...”

“Damien's not going to 'not accept us being together' – sure, he might have a thing or two to ask you, or a couple of things more to tell _me_ about being together with you, but he wouldn't disapprove, not outright.  Besides, he'll see how happy you make me, and how great of a man you are – because that's the one thing I've repeated to him every time I've talked about you: that you're a good man, a great man, with a golden heart.  Nevermind your vices, nevermind your sorrow, _that_ is what counts for me and that is what everybody else should pay attention to.  Nothing else.”  And then, without even hesitating, she tossed her towel away and stepped back into the spray of the shower to embrace him, kissing his shoulder again until he leaned down to kiss her lightly on the lips, smiling broadly.  His heart leapt up at the situation.

“...Sammy, ya just toweled off...”, he said, and she shrugged.

“You looked like you could use a little hug, mon amour – and what's a little water compared to the satisfaction of seeing that winning smile?  ...Now, might I abduct you from under this shower so we can get dressed?”

“Bien sûr, ma chérie, lead the way.”, he said, letting her go in favor of switching the running water off again.  She walked ahead of him, her hips very subtly swaying and alluring his mind, but he had a good grip on his unruly thoughts and kept them on the visitor's day instead of allowing them to escape to other, more pleasurable terrain.  “...Okay, I feel a little more ready to meet your brother.”

“I think you two are going to get along just fine, save maybe a few uncomfortable moments when someone from our teams is enough of an _idiot_ to make a remark about how we sometimes get a little, ahem, _swept away_...”, Sam said delicately, and Gabriel sighed, shaking his head.

“...Aw, _fuck_ , and I can't even punch 'em because what's your brother gonna think of me then?”

“You're perfectly allowed to punch anyone that doesn't talk about our relationship as if it's a proper relationship, or that makes either of us look like we're only in it for the sex.  Especially when they're insulting _you_ that way – there's nothing that'll make my brother more sure we mean business, and no better way of getting on his good side than him seeing you throw a punch at someone that says we _don't_ mean business.”, Sam remarked, and that got Gabriel nodding with a broad smile.

“The first espèce de salaud that even _thinks_ about insultin' you, or me, that way... il sera bien foiré.  Heh, now I'm almost _hopin'_ someone's gonna be enough of a fool to speak out of turn...”

 

“...So, who's coming to visit _you_ , Yaro?”, Sam found herself asking, casually swatting the heavy weapons expert's hand away from the _gargantuan_ stack of sandwiches she and Gabriel had prepared that morning, grinning as the man she'd addressed rubbed the back of his hand before answering.

“...Olga.  Has been long since I last see her.  She was in hospital last Christmas.”

“Olga ist seine Verlobte.”, Siegfried interjected quickly under cover of Yaroslav's explanation about the woman, whom he clearly adored if the way he described her waist was any indication.

“-so delicate, I must always be very careful when giving kiss to Olga.”

“It sounds like she is a marvellous woman, Yaroslav, to make someone like you so very happy.”, Sam admitted, causing the Russian to laugh loudly and nod.

“She is perfect woman!  She is beautiful – more beautiful than Sasha.  Stronger than level three sentry – she once killed wolf with bare hands!”  Sam suddenly imagined the heavy and his wife sitting in their cabin in Siberia, with a bearskin on the floor and a wolfskin hanging over the sofa, and the image had her chuckle softly.

“Hehehe, she does sound like the perfect wife for a man like you, Yaro'.  ...So you didn't see her for a year?  That has to be, uh, _difficult_.”

“Difficult, da... but today, I see her again, I kiss her very careful...  ...You and Gavriel must be very happy, da?”  Before Sam could voice her confusion, because she had no idea what her Russian teammate meant, Gabriel grinned and spoke softly next to her.

“Oh yeah, of course, j'ai tout à fait oublié!  ...Yeah, uh, so most of the guys are actually stayin' in town, with their wives, tonight.  There's only a couple of us on both teams that ain't goin' back to town.  You an' me, obviously, Archie, Billy, Grant, Theo an' Chris... uh, I think Arsène's fiancée Catherine isn't coming over from France this year-”

“She ees, and you will 'ave to do wizout me tonight au diner – I am takink 'er out for a leetle tête-à-tête we 'ave 'ad to miss for too long.”, the spy commented, causing Sam to grin and nudge him with her elbow.

“Bonne chance, donc, mon ami.  If you don't oversleep tomorrow morning, you haven't been properly using the time you had.”

“Or the wine.”, Gabriel added, snorting with laughter as Arsène merely turned on his heels and walked away, blushing.  Sam gave her lover a somewhat amused look that had him shrug and speak softly: “...What?  N'me dis pas que j'me trompes.  ...Anyway, Pierre's gone too-”

“Yeah, with my _mom_.”, Archie spoke up, looking longingly at the sandwiches, causing Sam to groan and glare at the scout.

“Those sandwiches are for _lunch_ , Archie, not 'late breakfast because Billy and I overslept'.  ...Where _is_ our charming New Yorker, by the way?”

“'Ey, how'd ya know I'm from New York, Sam?”, Billy said, appearing at the table and trying to make a dash for the sandwiches only for Sam to hit him hard on the hand and push him firmly away.  “ _Yo, that hurt!_ ”

“Yeah, I know, but if it doesn't hurt, none of you will _learn your lesson_.  Stay off those sandwiches, every one you eat now is one less for your visitors.  ...And to answer your question, Billy, I can hear it.  You and Archie have a slightly different accent.  He's from Boston, so you'd have to be from somewhere else.  Somewhere in the east.  Your love for arcade games and your appetite for shots of liquor told me you came from a big city, somewhere where both would be easily provided... so New York.”

“Heh, yeah, born an' raised!  ...Ya brotha lives in New York, right?”, Billy asked her, and she nodded.

“Well, not in the city itself, in one of the towns to the north, but only half an hour's drive away from New York City.  He does work in the city proper, though – or, at least, he's got his office there.  Half of the time he's out on business trips and construction sites, to check their paperwork...  It's lucky he loves his job, and I sure hope Katrin can appreciate it as well.  Though, truth be told, she probably also has to travel a lot for _her_ job-”

“She's a sales rep for the company that makes that fuckin' _diabolical_ energy drink, right?”, Gabriel asked, and she nodded.

“Yes, that's ho-”  Halfway through her word, she stopped, turning to the gates which had opened with a deafening shriek of metal on rock, suddenly looking intently at the stream of people they let in.  She could see some people she'd already seen in town a couple of times, coming to look out of curiosity, and some people instantly made a beeline for someone of the teams, making them _their_ visitors.  Yaroslav's future wife came running up to him and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly and showing that she wasn't as petite as the Russian had portrayed her... and then, she could see the neatly cut hair of her brother behind a small group of people that waved at Archie, who waved back, and she grinned.

“Sammy!”, he said loudly, and she couldn't help herself: running up to her brother, she enveloped him in a bear hug that nearly knocked him over and had the woman whose hand he'd been holding nearly double over with laughter.  “...Oof, you've gotten lean, must be from all the exercise you're getting on the battlefield.  Now, mind letting go of me so I can properly introduce you and get introduced?”  Smiling, she nodded and let go of Damien again.  “...So you probably already know Katrin, but just for the sake of things: this is Katrin Patterson, my girlfriend.  Katrin, this is my sister Samantha.”

“Ah, how d'you do?”, Katrin asked, grinning just as broadly as Sam did when she answered.

“Fine, and you?”

“Likewise.  I've been dyin' to meet you again, Samantha.  I've seen videos of your pyrotechnical skills, and I was amazed.  Even more so than Damien, I'm sorry to have to say.”

“Yes, well, I'd been following Sammy's career for two years already, I was hardly awed after the fifteenth time.  Fireworks all look alike-”  Then, however, he halted and looked behind Sam, causing her to turn around to find Gabriel stand behind her, looking at his feet shyly.

“...Ah, Damien, Katrin, this is Gabriel Dantan, my counterpart on the team of Reliable Excavation and Demolition and my boyfriend.  Gabriel, these are Damien Tennant, my brother, and his girlfriend Katrin Patterson.”

“Pleased to meet ya.”, Gabriel said with an admittedly hesitant smile as he extended his hand to Damien first before doing the same for Katrin while Damien gave Sam a look.

“...Your _boyfriend_ , hm?”, he asked softly; to anyone looking in, it looked like it was spoken teasingly, but Sam was wise to her brother's intonation by then and she nodded.

“Well, it's not like you didn't know we were involved...  Anyway, yes, so that's it for introductions, I'm guessing.  Would you like a sandwich?  Gabriel and I made them.”  If her brother had sounded disbelieving before, when she'd called Gabriel her boyfriend, now his look exuded sheer denial.  However, in a brilliant moment of understanding, Gabriel spoke up quickly.

“...Yeah, me an' Sammy need to cook for our teams, so since we spend our weekends together she suggested that we make the sandwiches together.  I had to agree, it ain't fair if she has to do all of the work herself – an' it was _fun_ workin' with her.”  He took her hand and gave it a quick squeeze, mainly to communicate the fact that he really wanted to hug her but didn't dare because her brother was standing there, and she squeezed back readily.  Damien seemed to be lost for words at that – either he didn't know what to say to the fact that she and Gabriel were now properly together, or he didn't know _how_ to say what he wanted to say.  In the end, it was hardly surprising when he cleared his throat and delicately nodded.

“...I'd like a sandwich, yes.”  Sam smiled broadly at him and pulled him along to the snack table, where the sizeable stack of sandwiches had already been halved, grabbing four of the small snacks and handing them out.  Damien took a breath next to her, his eyes on Gabriel who clearly felt uncomfortable as a result, but then seemed to decide against saying what he'd meant to say again and stuffed half of his sandwich in his mouth to stop the notion of speaking for the time being; however, that didn't stop Katrin.

“Okay, pardon me for being blunt, but Gabriel, you're _way_ older than Sam is, aren't you?”  Damien nearly choked on his sandwich, and Gabriel paled a little, but Sam ran her hand soothingly over her fellow pyro's arm as she answered in his stead.

“Gabriel's thirty-five.”  Now Damien seemed to consider dying a valid alternative to having to respond to that, causing Sam to add: “And we know what we're getting into, believe me.  But Gabriel isn't exactly your typical thirty-five-year-old and I'm not really a very typical twentysomething either, and we love each other, that'll be enough to make _us_ work.”  She'd emphasized that one all-important word, 'us', to show to both men that she meant what she said: Damien instantly started trying to speak hoarsely, his mouth still half-filled with sandwich, and Gabriel finally found his voice again.

“Damien, man, _you_ chew your food an' swallow it down first.  Sammy, _I_ 'm getting us all a soda.”  As he turned away, Sam heard him mutter 'or a fuckin' _beer_ ' but she figured lager wouldn't be as big a threat to Damien's image of Gabriel as hard liquor would be.  However, the moment Gabriel had gone into the dense mass of people queueing up for a drink, still managing to stick out literally, Damien turned to Sam.

“ _Thirty-five_?  I knew your, uh, _thing_ for him was a little out of the ordinary, what with your, uh, _mishap_ two months ago, but _thirty-five_?  He's older than _me_!”

“Eleven years older than me and four years older than you.”, Sam said, nodding softly before speaking on, her voice more determined: “But we're in love, Damien – it's not just what you think it is, not anymore.  It hasn't been like that for a while now, but we only realized how serious we are about each other last weekend.  We haven't even told the teams yet that we're more than just sleeping together, so _please_...”  Glancing over to Gabriel to see him gesture at the engineer and saying something that had one woman from the crowd look away in shock, she sighed and let her voice drop.  “...Gabriel's traditional, Damien.  He wants your approval – but if you disapprove, we won't stop seeing each other.  We're in too deep for giving each other up.”

“But-”, Damien started, seemingly wanting to voice each and every objection he had, but Katrin cut across him and grabbed Sam's hand.

“I've only known him for maybe five minutes, but I can already tell he doesn't just love you, Sam, he's _smitten_ with ya.  Thirty-five or twenty-five, I _know_ that puppy-dog-eyes look.  And the way you look at him...  Well, let's just say you're both madly in love with one another, and I don't think anything or anyone can interfere with that.  ...Damien, you can tell your sister's happy, too, can't you?”

“Well, _yes_ , of course I can, but-”

“And you know that Samantha's more than able to choose how to live her life, right?”

“I wouldn't dream of telling her how to live her life, but-”

“And this Gabriel guy, he does seem like he's going to great lengths to get you to give your brotherly okay about the two of them, right?”, Katrin cut across him once again, and finally Damien seemed to understand the reason why she cut short his every protest.  He sighed, his shoulders slumping, and nodded.

“...Yes, from what Sammy told me, he's barely being himself at the moment, and I ought to be surprised that he can still eat or drink at all because he seems more than a little nervous.  ...Well, okay, Sam, if it means that much to you – and to him, but I'm saying this for _your_ benefit more than _his –_ then I'm okay with you and your boyfriend being together.  Just... just don't mention the age difference too much, okay?  At least until I'm used to the fact that he's _eleven years older_.”  He reiterated those words silently to himself, shaking his head but not speaking up again until Gabriel returned with two beers and two sodas.

“Okay, here we go, two cold ones an' two sodas – uh, Damien, you want the other beer?”, he asked – if Damien had been blind to how eagerly Gabriel was trying to curry his favor, he couldn't ignore the fact that the six foot man had offered him the beer and not her; and Sam was glad to see that it had worked.  Mollified, Damien nodded and extended his hand to accept the cold beer – 'Blu Streak', by the label, her own company's house brand – which gave Gabriel the opportunity to hand out the sodas as well.  “Katrin, here you go... and finally, one sweet drink for one... sweet lady.”  He'd meant to add a slight slur there, but caught himself just in time.  Then, after a first sip – and, Sam noticed with a small smile, after _Damien's_ first sip of the beer – her fellow pyro spoke up again, his tone as tentative as could be: “...So, uh, would you like me an' Sammy to give you the tour of the place?”

“Of course we do!”, Katrin said, linking her arm with Damien's and motioning for them to lead the way, which Sam gladly did.

 

“Gabriel, there you are!”  At the sound of the familiar voice, Gabriel turned his attention away from the conversation to see his doctor walking up to him, smiling carefully at him.  Instantly, he smiled back, glad to see the woman.

“Doc Hayakawa!  C'mon over, I was just saying that you were probably stuck in traffic or something...  Uh, this is Samantha-”, he started, instantly getting interrupted by his doctor.

“Ah, yes – it's very nice to meet you, Samantha, especially since I've heard so much about you!  You're Gabriel's colleague, right?”  Sam shook the offered hand and nodded, smiling broadly.

“Among others.”

“Yeah, I was about to add that.  So Sam, my _girlfriend_ , and her brother Damien and his girlfriend Katrin.  Everyone, this is doctor Amanda Hayakawa, my psychiatrist.  She, uh, treats the pyromania and, uh, follows up the conditions of my stay here.  ...Uh, I take it your brother don't know that I'm-”

“I know you've gotten a conviction for arson, yes.  Sam did tell me that already.  ...Uh, doctor Hayakawa, I'm sorry if I take away your precious time, but I was just about to ask Sam if she maybe wanted to talk to Katrin alone for a second – give me the opportunity to properly talk to Gabriel away from the humdrum of this spot-”, Damien said, and from his tone alone, Gabriel knew that Damien wanted to talk about a lot more than just his past or his age, and he looked at Sam to find her nod, giving him just one encouraging glance.  “...Gabriel?”, Damien said, and Gabriel sighed.

“Sure, I think it'll be quieter in Sammy's room.  Unless Archie's in there-”

“Sam's roommate?  No, he's standing there, with his mother and... is that your team's spy?”, he asked, causing Gabriel to chuckle and nod as he and Sam's brother walked off.

“Yeah, long story... Pierre got Archie his job here, he's... well, he'll wanna tell you that himself, so I'll let him do the honors.”  He walked the BLU corridors blindly, and finally he entered his girlfriend's room, blushing when he noticed his sleeveless shirt still laying next to Sam's pillow.  However, when Damien sat down right next to it without noticing it, he turned back to the matter at hand – and before the businessman could speak up, he did so, a thought occurring to him.  “...So, uh, I get that you wanna ask me about myself, but can I ask ya one question before you do?”  It was clear that he had managed to surprise Damien: the other man blinked, looking utterly dumbfounded, before nodding slowly.

“...Well, okay... but I'm not sure what you'd want to know about me?”

“Oh, it's not about you... I wanna know if you knew how much Sammy's sacrificed for your brother.  I mean, she told me everything – because we've been honest from the start.  She... I'm never gonna be able to say this without swearing, so I hope you don't mind, but she is a fuckin' _rock_.  She gave up a job for Michael, she told me; she helped him with his homework, she invited him over to talk to her or stay with her whenever he got it extra tough at home, she took him out for fun because your parents had such a busy life...  She was more than just a big sister to him.  She's such a damn _wonderful woman_.  I just wanna know if you know that.  How much she loved Michael, an' how much she loves you.”

“...I knew she helped him with his homework, and I know she liked to take him out for a brother-sister afternoon once a month, no matter how busy her job was... but she turned down a job for Michael's sake?”, Damien asked, and Gabriel nodded eagerly, his tension falling away when he spoke to the point of him talking unguardedly.

“Hell yeah... she told me about her training in Enschede, about how they offered her a job at the end of her training... she was considering it, but then she got a call from your dad, sayin' that apparently Michael was being brooding more than usual, and she instantly decided to dismiss the job offer and take the opportunity to follow another training of three months in Cannes,which turned out to be one year in the long run, goin' back and forth from France to England.  The look she had in her eyes when she talked about it... she was _devoted_ to your brother.  Turning down that job, which would'a offered her a fixed income and a good steady livelyhood, it took her one second.”

“...I heard her talk about that offer, she... she told me it fell through.”, Damien said, his tone showing how utterly dumbfounded he was – and how surprised he was that Sam had lied to him.  “...This was... two years before I had Michael tested by Jules... uh, doctor Romino, a very well-known psychiatrist specializing in bipolar disorder, that happens to be a personal friend of mine.  I... two years ago, I had Michael come over for a vacation – or, at least, that's what I told mum and dad.  In reality, I had Michael examined by doctor Romino, and he diagnosed bipolar.  Michael was in a manic episode for the next year... and just when he was slipping back into depression, Sam lost her job because-”

“Because she'd gotten drunk and slept with three people, one of which was her boss, Jake Grantley.  ...Yeah, like I said, we were honest with each other.”

“...Well, yeah, because of that.  And she could've gotten a new job easily, she told me, but when she saw how Michael had gotten in the time she'd spent abroad, preparing that show... she told everyone else that the job hunt just went slow but I've been in contact with Lucian Parnell of Katchan Fire, her current and previous employer, and he's told me she just didn't apply for any jobs.  ...When Michael killed himself... that fire damaged more than her body.  That's why I've wanted to talk to you.  She's fragile, and I want to make sure that _you_ know that.”

“Oh, believe me, I do know, and I don't even wanna think about the fact that I could cause her hurt.  ...But, yeah, ask away.  I've been open an' honest about everything in my life with Sammy, and since she loves you to bits, Damien, I swear you deserve the same damn honesty.”

“Start by telling me why a man of thirty-five that's spent his life with men so far falls for a woman only two thirds his age.”, Damien said, and Gabriel gave him a shy grin as he considered the true extent of that question.

“...Well, where to start...  It's true that I've been with men most of my adult life – only twice in a relationship that _meant_ anything, but that's kind of, uh...”  He meant to give an excuse until he remembered that he'd promised to speak honestly to him and he spoke on openly: “...But that's to be expected – half of my adult life so far, I've been badly coping with la pyromanie... an' when I met Sammy's predecessor on BLU, a guy that also suffered from it but who had a couple of outlets...  Well, Sam probably told ya how bad I am – uh, _was_ , sorry.  I slept with virtually everyone on both teams, and then some, and I used to drink at least a bottle of vanilla gin a day... but not anymore, not since I met Sammy.  I've been goin' with less and less drinking for the past few weeks, and I haven't even looked at anyone but her, let alone thought about it.  ...But as for those relationships: one of 'em was before I got the pyromania, lasted a year an' a half, with a man I met durin' my studies... I've got a master's degree in chemistry an' I used to work as a chemical engineer at a pharmaceutical company – Rocher LaVie, don't know if ya know 'em – before everything got... uh, before everything went belly-up, I mean-”

“Look, Gabriel – you don't mind if I call you Gabriel, do you?”, Damien asked, and Gabriel found himself shrugging.

“We're grown men talking, nobody's called me 'mister Dantan' for fu- for _ages_.”

“Gabriel... you... I understand that I'm stressing you a little at the moment, but please, speak to me as you'd talk to anyone on your team.  I think I can take whatever it is you're biting your tongue for.  Sam also did mention that you swear like a sailor on shore leave, so if that's why you're constantly rethinking your words, _don't_.  I can take a few swearwords.  Or a lot.”

“...I, uh... okay, I didn't wanna make the wrong impression on you, but if you want me to speak freely, I'll do that.”, Gabriel admitted, grinning softly as he continued where he'd left off: “So, where was I?  Oh yeah, before everything got fucked up, I was a chemical engineer for a big pharmaceutical company.  But when I got a promotion, I took my mom out for dinner, and... she had bouillabaise...”

“Shellfish allergy?”, Damien asked, and Gabriel nodded solemnly.

“She didn't even know about it.  She just... never had eaten shellfish much in her life.  She died that night, and I... wished I'd died with her.  At the evening of her funeral, I got drunk, got a tattoo of her on my left arm, and lit a cardboard box on fire.  And after that...  Well...  things spiralled out of control, first back home, and then, after I ran away from treatment, here in America too-”

“You're not from here?”, Damien asked, and Gabriel nodded.

“French-Canadian.  I don't blame ya for not hearing, I've spent over ten years here, in the presence of a lot of guys that talk a lot of things but not my kind of English, and after a while ya pick up their slurs.  But man... Sammy is a fresh wind in this place, not just because she's a woman but because she's _proper_ , you know?  ...She's alright.  Not as damn dirty as the rest of us sorry _connards_ that are here – and a hell of a lot better than I am, in every field.  But at the same time, she's a lot _worse_ off than I am.  I mean, my mom died, and I blamed myself, but I _know_ that there's nothing I could've done against a toxic reaction in her body.  Sammy's beating herself up about your brother, Michael, and she doesn't even have _that_ comfort.  She keeps telling herself that she should'a done more, should'a done _better_ – even if she couldn't do even better than she already fuckin' did – and there isn't a voice of reason that tells her otherwise.  ...So...”  He took a deep breath, steeling herself for his admission to her brother and then just blurting it out, all of his carefully weighed words falling away for a much simpler way of telling the other man what was on his heart: “...I wanna be that voice of reason for her.  She... I never fell in love with a woman.  Hell, I never even _looked_ at women, never got turned on by 'em.  But one look at Sammy, one word out of her mouth, et j'étais perdu.  I fell like a plane out of the damn sky.  She's the first woman to ever make me feel the way I feel now – hell, she's the first _person_ to make me feel this fuckin' fantastic.  Everything I thought I knew about my life, good or bad, flew out the window.  She's my reason now, my new addiction, my new raison d'être.  She lights up my life in a lot of ways.  And I wanna do everything to keep a hold of that.  She wants me to be strong, then I will be; she wants me to be weak, then I'm as weak as they come.  She wants me to jump off a cliff, then I'm already halfway down it.  Je suis complètement dévoué à elle. Elle est plus que juste quelqu'un avec qui j'ai couché: j'aime lui profondément. Je veux que nous partageons notre vie ensemble, et de mieux vivre ensemble.”  Damien nodded slowly, and when he finally spoke up, his voice was soft and stern.

“I won't tell you 'better take care of Sam or there'll be hell to pay' – Sam takes care of _herself_ just fine, and it's not like I could lay a finger on you anyway.  But rest assured, the moment you stop wanting to share everything with her... the moment you hurt her... I may not be as strong as you are, but I'll find ways to get you wishing you'd never crossed her.”

“Yeah, I know that.  But you can rest easily, Damien-”

“Pfeh.”  The other man's snort was his only indication that he'd pronounced his name the French way, and finally the last of his tension was pushed away when he chuckled and shook his head.

“Well, damn, _Damien_ , Sam told me you go on more business trips than ya actually work in your damn office; ya mean to tell me, in all the times ya went to France, or Quebec, or Guinee, nobody's pronounced your name 'dah-mjen' instead of 'day-me-yun'?”  The other man grinned and nodded, relaxing and taking another sip of his beer.  “...Anyway...”, Gabriel continued, “...tu peux être assuré, la dernière chose que je veux, c'est que Samantha quitte ma vie.  I... Sammy said to not make any remarks about those three weeks, but you need to know that I am so fuckin' sorry for what I did then... and you need to know that I had a taste of what life without her would be like, and it'd be pretty goddamn _lonely_ and _horrible_ for me.  Sans elle, j'mourrais.”

“...Sam told me you're old-fashioned when it came to your relationship with her, that you wanted me to approve of the fact that you two are together.  And even if it's not up to me to tell her how to live her life, I've got to say she's not only happy with you, she's great with you.  I've never seen her look as radiant as she looks today.  ...So...”, Damien said, smiling broadly at him when Gabriel couldn't help but grin at the man's words, so utterly pleased with the fact that Sam's older brother was okay with the relationship he had with her, “...Tell me a little more about the pyromania.  Sam's told me most of it, but I'd prefer to hear it from you.”  Gabriel started talking, feeling a little more at ease around the man now that he knew he wasn't going to get brutally murdered for 'taking advantage' of Sam.

 

“...Sam, d'you mind if I go find Damien again?  Not that I'm bored with you, but... well, I figure our two fearless men have had more than enough time to talk in private now, and I miss Damien.”  Katrin spoke up next to her, which caused Sam to smile and nod.  It had been a little over three quarters of an hour since the two men had disappeared into the compound to be able to talk quietly, and though she didn't worry about Gabriel and Damien, she did feel a little apprehensive about the nature of their conversation.  Damien hadn't exactly hidden how utterly stunned he was by the age difference between her and her boyfriend, even though he'd said to her that he approved of it: there was a possibility, however minute, that he'd just said it to appease her and was now trying his hardest to make Gabriel give up on her.  However, when she caught her own thoughts, she mentally berated herself and added that Gabriel and her had made their own promises of never giving up, and that she trusted him completely.  In the end, it was that rock-solid conviction that her lover and her brother were most likely so absorbed in their conversation that they'd lost track of time that had her voice sound mirthful rather than mildly upset.

“I understand that completely.  Well, when you finally manage to find our two fearless men, tell Gabriel to get his arse back here, _I_ miss _him_ too.”  Katrin nodded, her eyes having that glint of deviousness in them that Sam appreciated and that also made the way their long-forgotten first meeting had happened seem a little more probable; to Sam's other side, doctor Hayakawa smiled.

“Ah, to be young and in love...”

“Yes, well, that's _my_ excuse, everyone else in my little  circle of confidence is over thirty and their excuses have long run out – which I don't mind at all, it's better for someone over thirty to still act like a teenager than have them act like they're _sixty_.  ...So, doctor Hayakawa, I presume you'll want to, uh... 'talk shop' with Gabriel now, right?”, Sam asked, prompting a chuckle out of the woman she addressed.

“I see Gabriel's usual brand of charm has impacted you somewhat.  To answer that question of yours: yes, I do want to have Gabriel's obligatory psychological evaluation right about now, I don't really need a tour of the base anymore.  I've been here nineteen times so far, by now I've seen it all.  Gabriel's room, the battlefield, the burnt place on the ground where that shed stood...”

“I've seen that spot, too... I can imagine why Gabriel was so eagerly drinking and sleeping his sorrows away, a fire that leaves such a scorchmark on the soil around here that it's still visible here after _five years_ must've been one _hell_ of an inferno...”

“Yes, but the reason why Gabriel so eagerly turned to his other vices is much more, uh, down-to-earth as well, I fear.  Because when this Lander was still alive, none of his vices were out of control.  In fact, the only ones he slept with back then were Lander and Chris, and he drank two glasses of vanilla gin a day, maybe double that amount when the urge to light a fire grew too strong.  Even his firestarting was much more in check.  But when Lander had his accident, Gabriel was...”  The woman paused, seeming to grasp around for the right word to name the RED pyro's mental state at the time, and Sam supplied eagerly.

“Devastated, I know...”  However, to her utter shock, the psychiatrist shook her head and corrected her.

“Gabriel was _suspect_.  He'd been the last one to see Lander alive, only half an hour before the shed caught fire and Lander woke up from his drunk stupor to find himself in the middle of a raging fire.  Everyone thought he'd violated the terms of his agreement with RED with disastrous consequences.  However, when the police investigated, they quickly found that he hadn't lit the fire, and his name was cleared, but after that he was afraid to start fires for more than just his own sanity.”

“Oh my god... so the teams' distrust-”, Sam started, and the other woman interrupted her with a firm, sorrowful nod.

“Yes.  Before that day, both teams trusted him – not much, but there _was_ a measure of trust there.  When Lander died in a fire... and he turned out to be the last one to see him alive...  Especially the men from BLU grew to dislike him.  Over time, that whittled away only a little.  To this day, the only ones that are tolerant of his pyromania are his own team's engineer, mister Dillinger, and both teams' medics, doctors Hartmann and Steinheim.  The rest... either avoid him or treat him with a firm but polite distance.”

“Unless when he wants to sleep with them, _then_ they indulge him.  ...How could they even _do_ that?!”

“There are a few exceptions to the rule, though – the scouts generally only serve six years with the company before they're replaced, so both mister Jessup and mister Jameson don't participate in it-”

“Archie did participate in it, but that's most likely because _the rest_ slandered Gabriel – oh, I'm so _furious_ with all of them!  I'll need to have a talk with my team about Gabriel and how they are supposed to treat him – as well as with RED team.  _What were they thinking?!_ ”, Sam said, bristling at the mere thought of Gabriel being treated so badly for something he'd been heartbroken about enough as it was.  However, that thought led her to question her boyfriend's psychiatrist on another subject.  “...Doctor Hayakawa, I know you can't tell me what Gabriel told you in confidence, but... did he _love_ Lander?”  The other woman sighed before answering – a heavy, somewhat mournful sound that provided Sam with enough information already.

“...I believe he did love Lander, though not as deeply as he loves _you_.  If it was just casual to him, he wouldn't have bonded so easily with the man he shared so much with.  ...And yet... and yet, they never named their relationship a relationship.  They didn't even call themselves each other's friend, despite everyone knowing that they were at least that.  They got drunk together frequently, or started fires together, or slept together – sometimes a combination of all three in one night, Gabriel was always, uh, _honest_ about it – but they'd just as frequently spend their evenings talking about chemistry, fireworks, special effects, or just _life_ in general.  ...From what Gabriel told me, he felt semi-exclusive to Lander, maybe even willing to be exclusive with him, but Lander didn't seem to notice Gabriel's commitment – or he did, and he didn't want any of it.  So... the fact that Gabriel slept around much more frequently after Lander's death may be more than just his trying to escape the pain of the loss of a friend, it might just be that his view on valid relationships had gotten _skewed._ Or perhaps he couldn't take the team's distrust and he considered them indulging him as a sign that they didn't hate him after all...”

“I'm still so having that talk with our teams, what they did is _horrible_ and I want to know what they've got to say for themselves.  ...Well, then it all makes a _hell_ of a lot more sense – the drinking, the sleeping around... the fact that, when he _did_ turn back to pyromania, he blamed it on me before he realized it was his own doing...”

“Ah, yes, that.  Well, I was informed by Gabriel's on-site, uh, _supervisor_ , mister Dillinger, about what happened.  And I must say, after all that did happen, miss Tennant, you're a very strong woman to let him back into your heart so quickly.  The rest of your team wouldn't have shown your measure of forgiveness-”  Sam snorted, feeling at once angry and flattered at the mention of the rest of her team.

“The rest of my team are _arseholes_ for treating Gabriel like garbage.  I cannot stress that enough.  ...Fortunately, he's got me to stand up for him now.  To stand up for _us,_ too, because both our teams don't much appreciate the fact that we are together-”  Sam meant to speak further and tell the psychiatrist about what had happened and how both teams' engineers had barred them from seeing each other during the week, but another voice cut her off.

“I'm so lucky to have Sammy in my life, don't ya agree, doc Hayakawa?”  Arms encircled her waist as she turned around, finding herself in her boyfriend's arms and her lips being pressed against his.  As a result, she nearly melted against him, gladly kissing him back lightly but longingly.  “... _Mmm_ , I so like it when ya stand up for me, mon ange.  It makes me feel like I'm the luckiest man on the planet for havin' my own personal angel, in the flesh.”  Grinning and kissing the top of her head, he added: “And I _really am_ le mec le plus fortuné du monde...  Avec toi, j'ai plus besoin d'autre chose, mon ange.  ...Uh, doctor, you wanna do our talk now?”

“Sure...”, the woman said, and Gabriel spoke up again, squeezing Sam a little more tightly against himself as he did so, causing her to smile and lean into the embrace.

“Can Sammy come with?”

“Well, if you want her to be there, she can be – but what about her brother and his girlfriend?  I imagine they came all this way for her-”

“Oh, I asked 'em if they'd mind missin' us for an hour and they said they'd talk to Dell an' Grant.  I don't even want to know what about.”, he said, and Sam sighed.  His tone made it perfectly clear that Damien wanted to talk about their being together and the impact it had on the team.  Doctor Hayakawa seemed to notice it as well, Sam mused, if her sudden nod was any indication.

“Okay, of course... lead the way, Gabriel.”  The RED pyro instantly let go of her, though he grasped her hand in his carefully as he walked off to his room – Sam could already blindly trace his footsteps to his door, having followed them often enough already.  Once inside, Gabriel sat down on the bed, and the doctor on his desk chair; Sam meant to sit on Billy's bed but her boyfriend pulled her hand gently, motioning for her to sit next to him.  “...So, how's it been?”

“It's been great in some ways, and fuckin' _awful_ in others.  Ever since your last visit, things improved dramatically.”

“Not immediately, I take it.”, the doctor said, and Gabriel meant to speak up only for Sam to cut him off, very deliberately squeezing his hand as she replied in his stead.

“...Not immediately, no, but about a month later, Gabriel and I had come to an arrangement that worked for the both of us.  There were a few instances of questionable judgment involved, from myself and from him, and some horrible accidents that-”

“Long story short, it doesn't matter that it took us a month to finally get things workin', what matters is that things got workin'.”, Gabriel said hastily, causing the doctor to look a little surprised but also making it clear to her that the subject was tender to him, because she nodded and turned to her next question.

“...You mentioned that it's been great... how so?”

“Oh, doctor, ya can't imagine...  She's... Sammy's like the angel I've always prayed for.  She just... took hold of me and lifted me from the mud, ya know?  Elle m'a montré que les portes du ciel sont pas fermés pour moi.  She showed me I could have a shot at _redemption_.  ...With her, I don't wanna drink myself into oblivion; with her, I don't need anyone else in my bed each night...”  He took a deep breath and, looking at his hands, one of which was still being held by hers, he continued, his words lifting Sam's spirit enough to make her heart ache: “...Avec elle, j'ai plus mes pires envies... “

“You don't feel the urge to light anything on fire?”, Sam asked before the doctor could, and Gabriel nodded solemnly, looking at her so intently that everything but him fell away to the BLU pyro, captivated as she was by his deep blue eyes.

“I don't feel the urge to light anything on fire.  Even better, I don't feel the urge to watch anything burn.  Sure, sometimes I _do_ wanna see a little bit of fire, but our line of work's more than enough, an' it hasn't been for the longest time.  I was in control of the urge for nearly five years – or, well, I was tellin' everyone that I was in control, but in reality I just denied lighting fires even if I did light 'em.  Even to myself.  But not anymore.  Since what happened between us, and... and the fires I lit because _j'suis un tel idiot foiré_...  Ever since then, I've been _really_ in control.  I didn't just justify giving in to the urge or try to hide my fuck-ups, I just... denied givin' in.  At first because I simply didn't have the time or the energy left to light anything the hell up-”

“Gabriel...”, his doctor said in a tone of voice that showed mild embarrassment, clearly meaning it as a warning not to get into too much detail about their love life as well as to gently remind him of her presence, but Gabriel just shrugged and continued unimpeded.

“-but afterwards, I just thought of you and of how fuckin' _disappointed_ you'd be, Sammy, and I figured that I could at least save ya the hurt of seein' me fall.  So every time I feel the need to light something up, I... talk to Grant, or take a nap, or even drink one glass of vanilla gin _real slow_.  For the _taste_ , can you imagine?  It doesn't always work – Sammy knows that – but at least I'm tryin'.”  He then grinned and, finally taking heed of the doctor again, spoke in a soft, almost reverent voice: “...It's been more than two weeks ago since I last lit anything up – and when I did light something up, it was a bunch of crap, an' I did it in the showers so I could wash away the ashes an' so water would be close at hand... and I confessed it to Sammy first time I saw her again.”

“That sounds amazing, Gabriel.”, the doctor admitted, smiling at him and then at Sam.  “I know how difficult it is for you to manage to deny yourself when it's very easy for you to get the fuel and the material for your needs: so every time you successfully go another day without giving in is a cause for celebration.”

“Yeah, an' I know just how I wanna celebrate.  Doctor, d'you think I could get my medication re-evaluated?”, Gabriel said, and Sam saw a multitude of emotions wash over the doctor: horror first, followed by surprise, hesitation, and then wonder, and finally clear determination as she nodded her assent.

“You'll have to get a full physical again, and the company is going to ask for an in-depth psychological review by an independent psychiatrist along with another in-depth conversation with me-”

“With Sam present – the Administrator-General can't object, Sammy'd have to be held back from battle anyway.”, Gabriel said with a firm nod, squeezing Sam's hand before turning to her with another breathtaking grin that had her mirror it without even properly realizing it herself.  “...Mon ange, ma chérie...  I know that it sounds a little scary to ya, maybe – I mean, I explained to you what my meds do and what the risks are in upping or lowering the dosage – and I _especially_ know that antidepressants are a li'l, uh, _sensitive_ to you, maybe, because of your brother... but I'd never risk hurtin' you or losin' ya.  You mean everything to me.  I just wanna see if I can do just as well with a little less chemical crap in my veins.  Le seul remède dont j'ai besoin, c'est toi, mon ange.”

“Oh, I'm not scared, Gabriel, and I'm not upset... I'm just... thinking of how I can support you best-”  Next thing she knew, Gabriel kissed her following words away, happily oblivious to the presence of his psychiatrist and making her feel sorry for the woman.  However, when he spoke up again, his voice was almost demure compared to his usual gruff way of talking.

“...Well, uh, sorry for that, doc... but I sometimes can't believe how much of an angel Samantha really is, and... and I can't help myself, really... okay, so... do you wanna ask anything in particular, or should I just talk?”

“...Well, I think I have got a few questions for you concerning your relationship with Sam, fresh as it is...”, the doctor admitted, and as Gabriel nodded, Sam did so as well, focusing on the true cause of the psychological evaluation again, though a part of her kept holding on to that feeling of elation she'd felt when Gabriel had told her, as honest as he ever would be in his life, that the only medicine he needed, the only cure he'd accept for what ailed him, was her.


	23. I've got love (making me whole) - Visitor's day part 2

“Sam!  C’mon in an’ meet the fam’ly!”  Gabriel stopped instantly when Dell’s voice rang out in the corridors of BLU, where they’d been looking for Sam’s brother and his girlfriend.  Of course he’d already seen Dell’s family on a lot of occasions: his wife was still young, the age difference between the Texan engineer and his doting wife even bigger than the gap between him and Sam, and their children were still pre-teens.  Nevertheless, he wouldn’t speak a word against Sam meeting the families of her teammates, and her look of genuine happiness was well worth the effort.

“Of course!  Hello, miss Conagher, I’m Samantha Tennant, Dell’s pyrotechnical protector.”, she said, extending her hand to Dell’s wife, a rosy-cheeked and curvy woman in a summer dress that smiled broadly.

“Pleased tuh meet’cha, miss Suhmantha!  Mah name’s Muhria, but ev’ryone calls me ‘Missy’, includin’ Winny ‘ere-”

“Aw,  _shucks_ , Missy, y’ain’t gon’ call me  _'Winny'_  in front’a Sam, are yeh?”, Dell said, blushing and causing Sam to smile apologetically.  However, Dell’s wife continued.

“Ah don” see what th’problem is!  …’Is name, ‘is  _full an’ proper_ name, ‘s Wendell. But he likes t’be called ‘Dell’ fer short.  Ah’m th’only one that gits tuh call ‘im ‘Winny’-”

“Pffff, like Winny the Pooh…”, came a soft, snickering voice from behind her.  Gabriel knew that that had to be Dell’s daughter, though he didn’t know the girl’s name; but Sam looked in surprise at the woman, who smiled warmly and turned to her little girl.

“Yeah, angel, like Winny the Pooh – daddy’s name’s real funny, ain’t it?”

“That’s why ah prefer  _Dell_ …”, the engineer protested feebly – his words were nullified by the broad, almost self-mocking grin on his features, and he cast Gabriel a helpless look that could just as easily be a plea for help as a fond wish for the RED pyro to just get him out of the room quietly.

“…And who might you be?”, Sam asked, crouching down to the girl’s level, looking right into her cerulean blue eyes.

“Ah’m Jenny.  Jenny Conagher.”, the girl brightly introduced herself before pulling her brother, who had been nearly invisible behind her, next to her and introducing him as well: “An’ mah brother’s name’s Samuel Conagher, but ev’ryone jus’ calls ‘im ‘Sam’.”

“Ah, just like me then!”, Sam said lightly, her smile broad and kind.  And then, Gabriel found, she extended her hand to the two children, for them to shake, which they did with barely suppressed giggles.  “I’m Samantha, Samantha Tennant.  But everyone calls  _me_ 'Sam', too.  Except Gabriel, here.”

“Whut’s he call yeh then, miss S’mantha?”, the boy asked, and Sam chuckled softly.

“ _He_ calls me ‘angel’.”  Instantly, both children laughed loudly, nearly falling down on the ground; Dell blushed softly, and his wife gave Sam a gentle wink and Gabriel a kind smile, but Gabriel didn’t much mind that his girlfriend was maybe embarrassing the BLU engineer.  Instead, he was fully focused on how easily she dealt with his children, and how readily she talked to them, as well as how she’d basically relaxed the children around him.  They had never looked twice at him – which, of course, made sense since he wasn’t a member of BLU and as such they didn’t need to meet him – but now the children seemed to regard him as interesting and benign in the blink of an eye, despite the girl being only half his size and the boy barely coming above his knee. “…Introduce yourself, love, or they’ll have to keep calling you ‘tall mister’ for the rest of the day.”, Sam said softly to him, and he smiled.

“Yeah, that wouldn’t be good… hello there, Jenny and Sam, I’m Gabriel Dantan-”

“Are yew  _married_ to miss Suhmantha?”, Jenny instantly asked shrewdly, and Gabriel shook his head, finding a meek blush creep up on his face.  But Sam gently grabbed his hand and answered the little girl’s question.

“We’re not married, but we do love each other very, very much, just like your mum and dad.”  Seeing the multitude of questions practically scroll over the children’s faces, Gabriel rolled his eyes and added to her explanation.

“Do ya think I should marry miss Samantha, Jenny?”

“If’n yeh call her ‘angel’, misteh Gabriel, then yeah! My momma an’ daddy got married, too, ‘cause momma calls daddy ‘Winny’ an’ daddy calls momma ‘sugar’-”

“Ah don” think that’s why yer daddy an’ me got married, Jenny, darlin’…”, Missy reacted; Gabriel nodded with a generous smile, noticing the way Dell’s face was starting to look like he’d run a marathon.

“Hey, uh, Dell, d’you want us to get your kids outta your hair?”, the tall pyro suggested – Dell clearly looked like he’d refuse politely, but then Sam spoke up and his features relaxed again.

“Oh, good idea, Gabriel!  Dell, you and Missy probably can’t mingle a lot with these two attention-grabbers constantly circling you… go on and talk to the others and the visitors, Gabriel and I don’t mind.  Oh, and, uh, if you see Damien and Kat – you’ll know my brother by sound, he’s the only one that has the same accent I have – tell them we’re in the dining room entertaining your two little ones.”

“Will do… thanks, Sam, li’l lady-”

“Daddy, why d’yeh call Sam ‘li’l lady’? She ain’t li’l!”, Samuel protested, and Gabriel couldn’t help but chuckle along when Sam instantly laughed lightly, waving the engineer off as she answered the question in his stead.

“Well, you see, your daddy’s nearly fifty, and I’m still twenty-four, so to him I  _am_ little.  He once told me that, if he had a baby at my age instead of when he was forty, that baby could be my age, can you imagine?  …Now, do you two want to sit in the dining room with us for a bit and play a game?”, she asked, to which the children instantly shouted their assent. Little Sam reached for the BLU pyro, in a clear attempt to get picked up and carried, but Gabriel quickly intervened and swooped down to put the little boy on his shoulders.

“’Ey, Jenny, ah kin see the  _world_ from ‘ere! M-mister Gabriel, are yeh ten feet tall?”, he asked, and Gabriel snorted softly.

“Pfehehe… no, just six feet tall.”  That led Jenny to look pensive as she walked alongside Samantha, clearly doing the maths in her head until she looked up at him again with those inquisitive eyes that were clearly a trait Dell had passed on to her.

“Then yeh’re one foot taller ‘n mah daddy, he’s only five foot tall.  …But how d’yeh kiss miss Suhmantha then?  Yeh’re taller ‘n she is.”

“Oh, sometimes I have to stand on the tips of my toes, or sometimes he has to lean down…”, Sam said – as they arrived in the dining room and walked to the living room part of it, sitting down in the couch, the children in between her and Gabriel, she added in a conspiratory tone: “…And when we’re sitting down, he’s not taller than I am so then it’s very easy.” The children giggled, trying in vain to muffle the sound by pressing their hand against their mouth, and then they meant to follow up their question with another, only to get stopped by Sam. “Wait, hold on, I think I know the game we can play.  One of you two…”, she said, pointing at each of the two children in turn, “…can ask me or Gabriel a question, and we’ll answer it if we can.  And then whoever answered the question can ask one of you two a question in return, that you’ll answer, and then you can ask one of us a question again!  Sounds good?”

“Yeah!”, Samuel eagerly said, and Jenny nodded, her eyes glittering with mischief already.  “K-kin ah start?”, the boy instantly followed up, and Sam looked at Gabriel with a faux-doubtful look, allowing him to speak up.

“…Well, why not.  Who do you want to ask a question to?”

“Tuh yew, misteh Gabriel…  Are yeh gonna marry miss S’mantha now?  ’Cause Jenny’s right, if’n yeh call ‘er ‘angel’ then y’oughta.” Gabriel gave Sam a soft look that somehow made his cheeks feel like they’d been massaged with sandpaper, and then sighed.

“Well, I know I have to marry miss Samantha – an’ believe me, I’m not gonna let her go off an’ marry someone else – but not just yet. First, we need to figure out if marrying is a good idea.”

“Yeah, yeh kin only marry once, y’know.”, Jenny said sagely, which caused Gabriel to turn to her.

“Okay, I can ask a question now, and I’ve got one for Jenny: what are you going to be when you’re all grown up, like me and miss Samantha and your mom and dad?”  The girl pondered the question for a while before smiling and speaking determinedly.

“Ah think ah’m gonna be a doctor.  Ah mean, dad’s real smart – he’s got all these degrees, they’re like papers on ‘is study wall that say he studied somethin’, like engineerin’ an’ mathematics an’  _difficult science stuff_  – but ah just want  _one_ , not  _eleven_ like ‘im.  An’ ah like the thought’a makin’ people better when they’re sick or injured.”

“…Ah saw a wounded horse once…”, Samuel interjected, looking at his hands in pure serious contemplation, his words betraying sharp insight and very acute mental faculties, Gabriel caught himself musing. “…Been run over by a car, an’ its leg were broken.  The horse doctor had tuh cut off its leg, ‘cause he said it could never heal properly anymore.  All th’other men at the ranch said it’d have tuh be put down – tha’ means they needed tuh  _kill_ it – but… but daddy said he’d make it run ‘gain, an’ he did. Built a pro… a pers… a fake leg fer the horse that could move like a  _real_ leg.  An’ the horse didn’t need tuh be put down.”

“Ah wanna ask mah question now.”, Jenny said impatiently, her tone gently berating her little brother for his interruption.  When he merely blushed and muttered something that sounded like ‘sorry’, she continued: “Miss Suhmantha, do yeh wanna marry misteh Gabriel?”

“Ah, that’s an easy one.  Yes, I do want to marry him.  But, like he said, not just yet.  We’re still young-”

“Speak for yourself…”, Gabriel muttered, instantly regretting the fact when both children looked at him in surprise, clearly trying to think of a way in which best to question his words so they’d get the maximum out of their answer.  However, Sam solved his problem for him.

“-okay, yes, mister Gabriel’s about the same age as your mum, but I’m younger, and first we have to see if that isn’t a problem. We’ll have to get to know each other just as well as your mum and dad know each other before we can get married, otherwise we wouldn’t be as good a couple as they are.”  That explanation seemed to satisfy both children, and Gabriel noticed the playful grin on Sam’s face as she nudged Dell’s son with her elbow gently.  “…So, Samuel, what do  _you_  want to be when you’re all grown up?”

“Ah wan’ be an engie-near like mah dad!  He kin do  _all kinds’a_ fun stuff, like blow stuff up, an’ build stuff, an’ read all them difficult books with math-u-metics an’ engie-nearin’ – an’ he can _blow stuff up!_ ”  Gabriel had to bite his lip in order to hold back his laughter, which caused Jenny to give him a very unforgiving look, mistaking his amusement for mockery; Sam, meanwhile, just smiled and spoke gently.

“Okay, now, who do you want to ask a question to?”

“Ah wanna ask a question tuh yew, miss S’mantha. Mah dad told us yew are a piyeh… uh, a fire-o-technic… yew fight ‘longside him, with fire, keepin’ ‘im an’ his sentry an’ dispenser safe… ‘s that true?  Do yeh really have a  _flamethrower_?”

“Yes.  And before you ask…”, she added, shaking her head and giving the boy a somewhat stern look, “you  _can’t_ see it.  My flamethrower is very dangerous and I have to keep it in a locked cabinet when I’m not using it because it’s got gasoline and sharp metal bits.  But I can tell you about it if you want.”

“Oh, naw, ‘s okay…”, the boy said, his interest clearly bleeding away, which allowed Sam to smile at Jenny and ask her question to her.

“…What grade are you in, at school?”

“Ah’m in, uh…  I dunno, ‘m in the class of misses Betty – but, uh, ah’m eight.”

“Ah’m fiiiive!”, Sam said loudly, grinning: Gabriel laughed softly, unable to keep himself from laughing out loud.

“Five, huh, little engineer?”

“Hey,  _ah_ was answerin’!”, Jenny said indignantly, and Sam spoke up as well, giving both Samuel and Gabriel a fake stern look – the tall pyro could see how clearly she had to hold herself back from laughing.

“Come on, now, Sammy, Gabriel, you should let Jenny answer.”

“But-but-but…”, the boy protested, getting cut off by his sister turning to Gabriel, who grinned as she looked at him.

“Uh, misteh Gabriel, c’n ah ask yeh… if yeh love miss Suhmantha, don’t yeh dislike fightin’ her?”  It was a deep question, Gabriel found, and his grin faltered to a mere warm smile as he pondered his answer for a second before speaking softly.

“…I don’t like fightin’ Sam, yeah.  But we’ve both got jobs to do – just like your dad don’t like fightin’ everyone on the other team that’s his friend.  Like Grant, or John… or me…”

“…Mah dad told us ‘bout yew, he said yew are a firebug – what’s a firebug?”, Jenny asked, but Gabriel shook his head solemnly.

“Only one question at a time, Jenny.  I’m sorry.  …Okay, li’l Sam, you told us you’re five… so what do  _you_ do all day, while your dad’s here building his sentries?”

“Ah go to school while momma works an’ I draw for my dad! He loves ‘em drawin’s, has ‘em hangin’ on his wall… an’ he showed me one drawing ah made, of him an’ his sentry, that he’s pasted on his toolbox lid so he sees it an’ thinks’a me whenever he’s buildin’ his sentry…  Misteh Gabriel, how come your hands’re all covered in white lines an’ wrinkly skin?”, the child instantly returned, and Gabriel sighed.

“…Samuel, I don’t think…”, Sam started, but Gabriel shook his head, reaching over the two children to put his hand on her shoulder, smiling.

“No, it’s okay.  I…  It’s kinda the same answer as to your sister’s question.  I’m… I get a little sad sometimes – but when you guys get sad, you can run to your mom; when someone like your dad gets sad, he can talk to your mom on the phone, or to his friends here in the base, but I… I  _used to_  make fires.  And I  _liked_ making fires, because they made me feel happy again.”, he said, emphasizing the ‘used to’ more for his girlfriend’s sake than for the sake of the children; nevertheless, the two gasped and looked at him with big eyes.

“Fires’re dangerous, misteh Gabriel!”, Sam said, and his sister nodded her assent.

“Yeah, they are – which is why little kids like you should never,  _ever_ play with fire.  Or…”, he said, holding up his hands to further prove the point as he continued: “…you’ll get burnt.  Like I got burnt.”  Then, however, he grinned and winked at the two children.  “Luckily, I’ve got miss Samantha with me now, so I can go to  _her_ when I get sad instead of making fires.  And she makes me a lot happier than making a fire ever did.  So that’s why I always call her ‘angel’ – because she  _is_ an angel.   _My_ angel.”

“Oh,  _Gabriel_ , you big…  _you silly, sweet, wonderful man…”_ , Sam said, her voice clearly betraying how emotional his simple admission to the kids had made her, and he got up to give her a light, loving kiss that had the two children laughing.  “…Why are you two laughing now?”

“Yeh sound jus’ like our momma an’ our daddy sound when they think we’re not lookin’ an’ listenin’… an’ yeh give each other a kiss jus’ like they always do… yew really really really oughta git married, otherwise it’s jus’ silly!!”, Samuel managed to say in between fits of giggles, and Sam and Gabriel looked at each other before deciding a plan of action with a glance and a nod.  Gabriel was the first of the two to speak up with a mischievous grin plastered on his face.

“Oh, so you think that’s  _funny_ , huh?  Let’s see how you think after we’ve  _tickled_ you to death!”  He swooped down into his seat again and started tickling Samuel, while Sam eagerly started tickling Jenny in the same way, and both pyros eagerly laughed along with the two children they were minding.

 

“Hey, Sam!  Come on ovah, meet my ma an’ two’a my brothas!”, Archie yelled at her, and Gabriel snorted but didn’t protest as she walked over to her roommate and his family, smiling softly.

“Hello, pleased to meet you all.  Samantha Tennant, BLU’s new pyrotechnic and Archie’s roommate.”  She offered her hand to the brothers, but instead of accepting it, the first of the two just whistled and looked her over somewhat eagerly.

“Wohohow, miss Tennant, tha pleasure’s all mine… Archie, ya said she was a lookah, but ya ain’t said she was fuckin’  _smokin’ hot!_ How’d you get lucky enough ta share a room with a girl this great-lookin’, dipshit?!”

“David Jerome Jessup!  Don’t you  _dare_ swear at Archie’s roommate again!”, Archie’s mother instantly flared up, her hands on her hips and her eyes nearly shooting fire at the tall, gangly, though thoroughly more built brother of Archie’s. The scout added his own indignant reply to his mother’s verbal slap on the wrist.

“Dave, what the hell, man?!  I  _told_ ya, she’s my  _friend_ an’ she ain’t nothin’ more, I don’t got a death wish, man!”  Motioning for Gabriel, who had one eyebrow raised and whose arm had snaked around Sam’s wrist, causing her to grin up at him, the BLU scout spoke on: “Sammy’s togetha with tha RED pyro, Gabriel-”

“Yeah, well,  _him_ I know.  He’s tha crazy one, right?  Uh, hey, man, I ain’t meant ta disrespect ya girlfriend…”  Gabriel snorted but left his arm around Sam’s waist and kept her close, which she didn’t mind.  “Uh, dip- I mean, Arch’, ain’t ya gonna introduce us to ya  _perfect_ roommate?”  The scout rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath that sounded like ‘showoff’ before finally introducing his mother and his two brothers.

“Yeah, so these’re my two brothas, Dave – he’s tha charmah that’s bein’ an ass-”

“ _Archibald Brent Jessup_ , don’t make me come over there and teach you that swearing is impolite!”, the scout’s mother said heatedly, and Archie paled and stammered an apology before continuing his introductions in a light and overly neutral tone.

“So, Dave, Steve, my two brothas, an’ my mom.  Mom, Dave, Steve, this’s Sam.  Ya already know Gabriel.”

“It’s very nice to meet all of you.”, Sam said, shaking Steve’s hand and then extending her hand to Archie’s mother, who instead pulled her in for a hug and three kisses on the cheek.  She was exactly like the scout had described her: kind-hearted, minute of stature, bubbly and energetic, and absolutely  _fierce_ towards her sons misbehaving in any way.  “I’ve heard a little bit about you guys-”

“Just a little bit?  ’Ey, dipstick, ya ain’t gonna tell us ya didn’t tell her all about ya much cooler older brothas-”, Dave started, and Steve snorted, rolling his eyes.

“I think I can guess why ya ain’t told her more about ya family – ya were a li’l preoccupied, huh?”  Dave looked nonplussed, and Archie rolled his eyes at his older brother’s oblivious expression.

“Yeah, Dave ain’t tha sharpest.  Seriously, Dave?  Sam?  Tha chick that got  _burnt tryin’ ta save her brotha?_ ”, he said, the end of his sentence an urgent half-whisper to show how sorry he was for bringing the subject up, and Sam sighed, shaking her head when Dave seemed to finally realize his mistake.  He took a deep breath and groaned.

“Aw man… Sam, I’m so sorry, miss, I completely forgot.”

“Lucky you.”, Sam said before giving him a forgiving smile.  “…It’s okay, though, I can hardly blame you for forgetting.  And beside what happened in my family, there was Gabriel.  He’s, uh, kept me running after myself for the past two months.”

“Heh, from what I heard, you an’ him did a lot more than runnin’…”, Steve said, his smile slightly crooked just like Gabriel’s got when his thoughts were less-than-pure, and Sam raised an eyebrow, which caused him to follow up with a meek: “…Uh, no offense.”

“Yes, well, it’s not like we hid the fact that we’re together from our mutual teams.”, Sam said, grinning up at Gabriel when he kissed the top of her head before taking the empty soda can she’d been holding and crushing it with ease, which in turn caused Dave to wolf-whistle.

“ _Man_ , I can see what Archie meant when he said ‘I ain’t got a death wish’ –  _for fuck’s sake_ , dude, do ya bench-press or somethin’?  Ya ain’t even squeezed  _hard_!”

“The only thing I bench-press-”, Gabriel started, his fingers idly caressing Sam’s stomach and making her guess the continuation of his sentence, causing her to intervene before he voiced it.

“Ahem, love, you don’t have anything to prove to anyone – least of all Archie’s brothers, who are all younger than you are and nowhere near as handsome.  No offense.”

“Well, normally I’d take offense, but for a stunnah like you?  I’m willin’ to ovahlook it.”, Dave said with a grin; Gabriel’s fingers instantly ceased their idle caressing and the pyro tensed, causing Sam to sigh and turn to Archie.

“Arch’, maybe you should tell your brothers not to try and hit on me so ineffectively?  Otherwise they’re going to leave this base with less blood and less teeth than when they entered.  I won’t be able to hold Gabriel back-”

“Hey,  _I_ ain’t hittin’ on ya, Sam.  I know bettah.  But awright, I think we can take a hint, right, Dave?”, Steve said, raising his hands soothingly; his brother grumbled but fell in line again when Gabriel ominously cracked his knuckles, his face a good three shades paler than it’d been before. “…No, but ya look real nice, Sam. Especially considerin’ ya actually  _died_ for ya brotha.  All ya been through… man, I can’t even imagine.  You an’ ya lovah-”

“Uh, me and my  _boyfriend_.  Gabriel’s a lot more than just the man I take to bed.”, Sam said, and Steve blinked.  He looked at Archie for confirmation, which in turn led to the scout turning to her again.

“…I thought ya said… ya said ya weren’t lookin’ for a relationship.”

“Yes, but then last weekend happened…”, she said delicately, the scout’s face betraying that he understood instinctively what she meant and yet hiding that understanding instantly so as to not betray anything to his family, “…and Gabriel and I had a long overdue talk. We’ve decided that we are going to stop pretending we’re not committed and finally  _commit_.  Even more so after we’ve just babysitted Dell’s little children, who kept asking me and him if we were going to marry like their mother and father because we use pet names for each other.  When I called him ‘love’ they couldn’t stop laughing and teasing us both about it; when Gabriel admitted we’ve slept in the same bed, just like their parents do, they went  _crazy_ and insisted that we  _had_ to get married because we’d have babies.  I… may owe Dell several apologies.  His wife Missy is having the ‘birds and bees’ conversation with them as we speak.  I hope.”, she added quietly, and Gabriel’s snort saved her a lot of embarrassment as it cut across Archie’s words.

“Pfeh, he can handle it – besides, at age eight  _I_ already knew about l’origine des bébés.  …But God, it was  _fun_  playin’ with those tykes.  Fuckin’  _amazing_.  Sammy’s  _wonderful_ with kids.”

“That sounds like you would love to have children of your own, mister Dantan!”, Archie’s mother said, cheerily smiling, and Sam half expected Gabriel to avoid the question: however, he grinned and answered the question as directly as he ever could.

“Hell yeah!  Me an’ Sammy, we’re gonna have kids, an’ they’re gonna be  _perfect_. How could they not be?  Anything Sam’s had a hand in turns out  _fuckin’ awesome_.”

“ _Ew_ , Dante, man, don’t talk about havin’ kids with Sam, ‘s bad enough we’ve gotta  _hear_ ya!”, Archie said with heavily faked disgust, Sam noticed, and Gabriel reacted in kind, grinning broadly as he answered.

“Well,  _merde_ , Archie, it’s not like you’ve suddenly become a damn  _monk_ , ya know.  Besides, what are you complainin’ about, every time me an’ Sammy sleep over at BLU side,  _you_ 're over at  _RED_ side keepin’ their sorry asses awake together with Billy!”  Instantly, Archie blushed deeply, his mother gave him a surprised look, and both his brothers turned to him looking utterly startled.

“Arch, ya ain’t said you an’ that _scrawny RED sluggah_ were livin’ it up!  I thought you an’ ya spy-”, Steve started, and Archie muttered a vague response before turning to Sam with a look that clearly said ‘you owe me for that comment’ – it didn’t matter to her roommate that Gabriel had been the one to make the comment.  However, that in and of itself showed how he regarded anything that Gabriel did as something that Sam had control over, which meant that he fully accepted their relationship, and that fact made her smile forgivingly as she answered the scout’s brother.

“Yes, well, Arsène’s got a fiancée and maybe it’s about time Archie took some distance from him so that my charming French colleague can focus on  _that_  instead of on  _him_.  And Billy’s basically the same age as Archie, so they’re a much better fit than him and a guy  _twenty years older than him_.  …So, miss Jessup, I’ve been dying to hear all about how you’ve met Pierre!  I mean, Archie told me a little – about how his dad left and how he hasn’t been a part of your lives for long after that…”  She let her voice trail off, leaving it up to the older woman to correct or agree with her, and after a soft sigh, that was what she did.

“…The boys’ dad, Gary, left when Archie was only four, too young to understand.  My oldest two, Richard and Peter, were thirteen and fifteen at the time – they understood a lot better than Archie what had happened, and they didn’t want him in their lives anymore.  The rest were… sad, but they followed the opinion of their big brothers.  Even Steve, who was eight at the time and normally was very vocally  _not_ agreeing with Rick and Pete.  He found his oldest brothers ‘dumb’ at the time.”  The eldest-looking of the two of Archie’s brothers blushed meekly but didn’t speak, allowing Archie’s mother to continue: “I did my best to stay afloat in the years after, and that worked out pretty well. I mean, I didn’t have any money to send any of my sons to college, but Rick got a full scholarship and managed to study mathematics, and Peter went to community college.  The rest either wanted vocational studies, like Sherman and Steve, or didn’t seem to think it was important to have a higher education, like Dave and Ben.  Archie’s… well, I don’t know about Archie.  He got in trouble before we’d really discussed his future-”

“Heh, well, I’ve still got almost a year to think about it.”, Archie said, grinning broadly.  “My contract’s almost up, an’ then I can study anythin’ I wanna.  My pay’s gonna make sure I can buy a nice apartment, so I ain’t gotta worry about rent an’ I can just focus on studyin’… as for what, well… I dunno… but I had to share with Dell a couple’a times before Billy started invitin’ me over, an’ I watched the ol’ hard-hat at work. He said I got a good head for technological shit, so…  Engineerin’ looks like it’s nice.”  Sam could easily see the look of utter surprise on the scout’s mother’s face, and Archie clearly could see it as well, because he grinned and added: “…C’mon, ma, it ain’t like you think I can’t do engineerin’ studies.”

“Well, are you sure?  I mean, Rick briefly considered engineering studies, but he said they’re _enormously difficult_ because they’re much more practical than pure mathematics-”

“Yeah, well, no offense, but Rick’s a  _dumbshit_. I know, I know, ‘don’t you insult your brothers, Steven Jonah Jessup’ – I’m sorry, ma, but I ain’t  _wrong_.”, Steve interrupted, anticipating his mother’s angry outburst and mimicking her voice uncannily well before answering her in the same breath.  “Arch’, if ya pull off getting an  _engineerin’_ degree, Rick’s gonna be  _so upset_ that ya upstaged him.  So hell, go for it, show him who’s tha bettah brotha.”

“Heh, we all know who’s tha bettah brotha, Steve – not scrawny here, an’ not me, an’ not Sherman or Rick an’ Pete… an’ not Ben, eithah.  There ain’t no one that’s done as good in life as you.  Ya got ya partnah, ya li’l girl, a good job, a great house…”, Dave added, grinning from ear to ear before clearing his throat and turning to his mother again.  “…Anyway, I think Sam was askin’ about how ya met Pierre, right?”

“Well, yes, I  _am_ kind of curious how she and Pierre met, they make such a great couple – it’s very clear that Pierre loves your mum deeply, and she clearly is smitten with him as well, which is surprising for a woman that has lived with seven sons and kept them all fed, clothed and behaving perfectly.”, Sam admitted, and as Archie’s mother spoke, she leaned against Gabriel a little more, feeling perfectly at ease.  She was surrounded by friends and enveloped in the warmest embrace she could ever possibly want, making sure that her every thought was light and happy.

 

“Ah, there you are!”  Gabriel looked at Sam, following her gaze to Damien and Kat who were standing with doctor Hayakawa again, talking airily about something – from the looks they gave him and Sam and the way they instantly stopped talking, Gabriel could guess that the subject was him.  “…had a nice gossiping session?”, his girlfriend asked with an all-too-knowing tone, showing that she, too, had guessed that he’d been the topic of the conversation, and the guilty blushes that all three got were more than enough reward for him.

“Well, we wanted to come sit with you when you were in the living room, but I think you two were being wrestled to the ground by two children at the time, with some pretty clear accents… they must be your engineer’s children, right?”, Katrin said, and Sam nodded.  “…He’s… kind of old to have such young children, isn’t he?”, she followed up, and Sam shrugged.

“Dell’s forty-nine, I think.  He said he’s been working here for nearly twenty years now, and that he’s studied until he was about thirty, so…  But he and his wife, Missy, they make such an  _amazing_ couple! And their children are  _delightful_.  Samuel’s a very bright young boy that clearly loves and adores his father, and Jenny is just as smart as she is kind.  …You should have seen the way she kept looking at Gabriel’s hands: she was trying to figure out whether she knew anything to make them less rough.”

“…Ah, that’ll probably explain why she was trying to sand them with that rock wool when I went to the little ladies’ room…”, Katrin said with a soft chuckle that had Gabriel wince emphatically, remembering the moment well.  His hands, despite their thick skin, the many scars and the even more numerous callouses he’d acquired over the years, were very sensitive; when the little girl had started abusing the rock wool in an attempt to smooth out his skin, he’d had to bite his lip hard in order to keep from swearing.  In the end, only Sam’s quick intervention had stopped a catastrophe from happening.  “…Well, they  _look_ softer somehow.”, the older woman said, causing Gabriel to raise an eyebrow and slowly put his hands in the pockets of his track pants.

“That’s probably because I spent three minutes rinsing my hand under cold water to make the scratches stop bleeding and the swelling go down.  C’faisait mal.”

“Oh, don’t be such a baby, Gabriel, we’ve had worse injuries.”, Sam reacted, though she grabbed his hand and ran her thumb gently over the already healing scratches, causing the tall pyro to grin and kiss her slender fingers.  It also seemed to cause Sam to reminisce about their battle experiences.  “…Hey, remember that arrow Theo shot through your shoulder?”

“I ain’t never forgettin’ that one, and neither is Theo, not when I nearly cut him in half with my Axtinguisher.”, Gabriel said with a somewhat self-satisfied grin.  Katrin gave him a look of confusion, as did Damien, but his psychiatrist looked a little pale and Sam elaborated.

“Uh, his Axtinguisher is his fireaxe – the one he so eagerly showed off-”

“The one with the  _barbed wire_?!”, Damien said a little more loudly than he meant to, causing a few people to look at them in surprise.  “…You… I thought you were kidding when you said that was your weapon… uh, that must make you very loved by Sam’s team…”, he added in a hushed voice, and Gabriel nodded.

“Oh, if they see me comin’, they either turn away and run the hell back behind the line of defense, which is probably their best option because if they incap one of my arms, like Theo did, I just  _swing my Axtinguisher with one_ hand… heh, that was the day when most of BLU learnt I’m a natural leftie, too, I guess… or they become  _vicious_ in return. I’ve been torn apart by bullets, burnt to a crisp – by the way, Sammy, if ya bring up Theo, why not bring up how ya roasted my ass defendin’ that intel?”

“Because I was just about to bring up roasting that arse of yours when you were running after Archie.  It took half a minute.  Thirty of the longest seconds of my entire life, that’s how long it took for Gabriel to die.  I’d, uh, left my fireaxe in respawn and my shotgun had run out of ammunition, so I had no choice but to just dump burning fuel on Gabriel until his lungs  _finally_ gave up the fight.”  Smiling somewhat apologetically at him, which made Gabriel feel as if he’d been injected with pure adrenaline, his heart beating overtime and his senses sharp, she added: “…But Gabriel got me particularly well a few times as well. Once with his Detonator flare, and once with his Axtinguisher.  Respawn doesn’t leave even the slightest bruise, but my leg felt like it’d come off again for three entire days.  …Oh, but we’ve seen our fair share of stupid deaths as well, too – Gabriel, can I tell them about the time you charged unthinkingly right into the path of one of Dell’s level three sentries?”  Suddenly, Gabriel felt almost meek, unable to stop himself from blushing slightly.

“…Yeah, I… was kind of distracted back then… and I kind of chased Sammy around the battlefield all day that day, wantin’ to be the one that killed her most…  So I saw her, I ran up to her – and I didn’t even see Dell standin’ there, let alone his rocket-launching dual-minigun level three sentry.  I… shouted somethin’ to her and finished my sentence in respawn feelin’ like a fool – when ya respawn from bein’ hit by a rocket, it feels like ya haven’t even died, but I  _knew_.  Sam said ‘oh my god, Gabriel, I’m sorry love’ and-”

“You heard that?”, Sam asked, and Gabriel nodded, grinning broadly.

“ _You_ I  _always_ hear, mon ange.”  Looking at Damien, he suddenly remembered what he’d discussed with Samantha that Wednesday night, right before falling asleep in her arms on the separate medbay floor.  She’d sounded utterly convinced that he hadn’t lost his family forever, and she’d managed to spark hope in him again.  “…Uh, Damien?”, he started, causing the other man to look at him, nodding to indicate he could speak on which the pyro did with only a little hesitation.  “…There’s something I needed to ask still.  I told ya about my family before, right?”

“Yeah, your dad and your sister that you left behind.”, Damien said, giving Gabriel a somewhat rueful smile that the pyro answered.

“Yeah, about them… Sam an’ I were talkin’ about them before, about how I haven’t been in touch with ‘em for ten years now, and she said that you could maybe… find their contact info for me.” Instantly, Damien blinked, but Gabriel could virtually see the gears turn in his head.  Smiling, he decided to butter up the man a little, figuring that greasing those gears wouldn’t do any harm: “I mean, Sammy said you’re an excellent businessman, an’ that ya got to go to Canada a lot… if I can believe her, you almost single-handedly set up the Canadian branch of your company, Neoplast. She said ‘if there’s anyone that can find them again, it’s him’ and I believe her.”  Damien’s hesitation turned to full-on planning in the blink of an eye, the pyro noticed, and finally he nodded.

“Well, she’s… I was part of a  _team_ setting up those branches, but… I do have excellent business contacts in Canada. …Well, okay – as long as neither of you expect any miracles from me-”

“Dami, you’re my big brother, I’ll  _never stop_ expecting miracles from you, especially not after all you’ve done for me.”, Sam said with a broad smile, and Gabriel found himself mirroring that smile as he pulled her against himself softly.

“Same goes for me, man – after all Sammy’s told me about you, and all you did for her, there’s no way you’re not getting any results.”

“Okay, so… uh, I might need to write this down…”, Damien said, and the group of four migrated to one of the picknick tables that they’d put outside for the visitor’s day, sitting down: Sam’s brother took a small notebook and a pen out of the inside pocket of his coat and flipped to the first empty page.  “…Okay, do you have anything to go on?  Last known contact information?”

“Well, I don’t know if it’ll help, but I still know their addresses… so my dad, Marc Dantan, had his address at Argyle Road 32b in Regina, Saskatchewan… and my sister, Annabelle Dantan or Annabelle Jordan, I don’t know if she’s still married, used to live at Carnarvon Street 133 in Vancouver, British Columbia…  their telephone numbers are-”

“Oh, I don’t need their telephone numbers, I think addresses will be enough.”, Damien said, thinking for a second before adding: “…Maybe they left new contact details at the hospital where you’ve been treated back in Canada, just in case you’d ever return.  Can you, uh…?”

“…I was treated in l’hôpital Fleury… eh, but the address-”

“No matter – Fleury Hospital in… Montreal?”, Damien asked, and Gabriel nodded.

“Ouais…  Yeah, I, uh, lived in Montreal for a year.  …Oh, a-and can I add just one address to that?  Avenue Macalear 5812 in Montreal.”

“Mmhmm…”, Damien muttered as he scribbled the address down in neat handwriting, causing Gabriel to understand part of the reason why he was such a successful businessman: he exuded the air of someone meticulous – just like he’d been once upon a time, he caught himself thinking. Focused on his work, dedicated, analytical and detail-oriented.  “…And who’s address is that?”, Sam’s brother followed up, and now Gabriel found that he suddenly  _had_ to look at his hands, the thought heavy.

“That is – or, uh,  _was,_ I don’t know what they did with it – my house.”

“You… have a house?”, Damien asked, and Gabriel nodded.

“I made a good livin’ bein’ a chemical engineer. Lived with my partner, Jacques, before I had to find a place of my own, and I managed to save up a good portion. Not to mention I got three big bonuses in my first year on the job.  So when it all started turnin’ to crap, I figured I might as well invest it, and I… bought myself a house.  It still took me half an hour to drive to a decent store, so it was a fuckin’  _crappy_ place to live, but it suited me perfectly fine at the time.  …God, I can’t even imagine the state it’s in now, after ten damn years…  B-but yeah, if ya could find out if it’s still  _mine_ …”

“Shouldn’t be too difficult.”, Damien said, nudging Sam – it was only then that Gabriel noticed, too, that his girlfriend had been surprised by the fact that he still owned a house in Canada.  However, she had a faint smile on her face, the reason for which became apparent the next second, as she spoke up.

“…I hope it still is.  I want to see your house, Gabriel, mon amour.  I want to have a glimpse of the life you left behind coming here.  …I’d show you  _my_ apartment back in England but I think Damien tied up all of my loose ends back there, so my life is now here-”

“Samantha, ma vie, c’est avec toi, n’importe où.  If you wanna go back to England one day, I’m comin’ with ya; if you want to stick around here, where Damien lives, I’m here with ya…”

“And if I want to go to Canada with you, to live in that house of yours?”, she asked, and Gabriel grinned broadly.

“Ma maison n’est qu’une maison, Sammy – it’s just bricks an’ mortar and wood and electrical wirin’… but with you,  _any_ house becomes a home to me.”  Damien smiled, as did Katrin next to him – Gabriel wasn’t blind at all to the way the man’s girlfriend grabbed his hand and squeezed it gently, and that was what caused him to speak up lightly, almost teasingly: “…I’m sure it’s the same for you an’ Katrin, Damien, man – bet you loved showin’ her your house because she made it feel more alive.”

“…Well, uh, you could say that, y-yeah…”, Damien said, blushing softly – Sam’s incredulous look at her brother was followed by her soft-spoken response.

“Oh, would you look at that, Gabriel, you’ve managed to make Damien  _blush_!  …Do tell, brother dearest, are you blushing because Gabriel was spot on, or are you blushing because of the thought of Katrin living in that humongous house with you?”  Damien’s blush deepened and he changed the subject very transparently to talking about the town and what kinds of entertainment he and Katrin would be able to find for their evening, but Gabriel could tell with ease that Sam’s older brother was blushing because of  _both_ of those reasons.  Sam’s gentle squeeze of his hand showed him that, whatever the reason for her brother’s blush, she felt great knowing that he had someone to make him happy, while at the same time communicating that she’d love nothing more than to see his house and be the person to make it feel like a home to him.


	24. It's never just as lovely as it seems

“So, Sam, Gabriel, did y'all have nice talks with'cher visitors?”

“Heh, yes, we did.”, Sam admitted – Gabriel looked down just in time to see her look up at him, causing him to smile broadly.  “Sam's brother didn't freak out about the age difference half as much as I thought he would, an' he didn't argue about us bein' together at all.  He did tell me not to hurt Sammy, or else – you know, 'frère majeure' typique...  Nothin' out of the ordinary... how'd your visit go with your kid?”, he asked, and Grant got an uncharacteristically broad smile on his features.

“Lynn's growin' so fast, 's like Carol's givin' 'er growth hormone instead'a milk.  Ah miss tha' li'l lady so much... but ah'm gon' see her again at Thanksgivin'.”

“Oh?”, Sam asked, and Gabriel blinked, surprised, before he remembered that Sam came from England and she probably had no idea about Thanksgiving.

“...Yeah, we, uh, get four weeks off per year – half a week for Thanksgiving, two weeks for Christmas and New Year's, a week around Easter and another half-week in June.  Thanksgiving is in the last week of November, so that's still a ways away, but...”

“Oh wow... so, uh, what about All Saints' Day?  Pentecost?”

“Yeah, uh, we ain't git those.”, Grant said, though he grinned the next second.  “Still, 's better 'n nuthin'.  We could'a had _zero_ time off – ah started on 'bout fifteen years back an' ah didn't have _no_ vacation fer the firs' year.  That were hell, 'specially as ah missed Carol too darn much-”

“Say, Grant...”, Sam asked next to him as they walked back inside the building carrying the empty platters that had borne the sandwiches, while Archie and Billy were making a rounds of the site to dispose of all the plastic cups that people hadn't put in the bins.  “...I was just wondering... your wife, she still comes with your daughter, no matter how it's almost a day's drive for her... and you talked like you're still very close.  How... I mean, if I'm not prying overmuch, why did you... break apart?”

“Ah, now 'ere's a long story.  She... we were highschool sweethearts, her an' me.  Ah got six PhD's an' five more master's degrees, an' she's got two PhD's in th'same area 'f expertise, which is mathematics an' applied physics.  We started workin' fer RED at th'same time – her in HQ workin' on the respawn machine R&D an' me here in the field – an' when we got married, the comp'ny provided us with a house 'ere in the town.  But... well, then she got pregnant fer the firs' time an' she... had a miscarriage.  That broke 'er on the inside.  She became quiet, like, an' we sorta started growin' apart.  By the time she got pregnant fer a second time, she... she'd started tuh look fer another job, 'cause she didn't think it were right fer RED t'be havin' such a hold on us, an' just a li'l after Lynn were born, she found 'nother job an' she gave me an ultimatum.  Give mah job as a 'field engineer' up or give _'er_ up.”

“Oh wow... that... that choice must've been heartbreaking...”, Sam said softly; Gabriel nodded, looking with slight dismay at his friend and colleague, finding the older man shake his head and scratch through his thinning auburn hair.

“Yeah, well, th'consequences were heartbreakin', that much were fer sure.  When ah said 'ah'm stickin' with mah job', she packed 'er things an' moved back tuh Georgia.  She's livin' in S'vannah nowadays, her an' Lynn, three blocks away from 'er parents.  Ev'ryone understood the both'a us – her fer goin' away from a job she blamed fer her firs' miscarriage, an' me fer stickin' with a high-payin' job that gives me th'opportunity tuh support Carol an' Lynn even if'n we ain't married no more.  Ah still love 'er – an' ah think she maybe still loves me – but... things is the way they is...”, Grant finished with a soft sigh, and Gabriel mirrored that sigh.

“Well, _merde_... Grant, mon ami, I had... j'avais aucune idée...”  Grant instantly got a somewhat boyish smile back on his features, patting Gabriel on the arm and then nodding kindly at Sam.

“'Ey, y'ain't gotta start pityin' me, Dante, son – ah've done more 'n enough'a tha' mah darn self.  ...Well, ah'm goin' over tuh mah own parents on Thanksgivin', they live in downtown Macon an' they _love_ gittin' me over fer the holidays, but Lynn's gonna be there too, an' on Christmas eve an' on New Year's, ah'm goin' over tuh Carol's tuh celebrate.”

“Hey, Grant, if you still love her, why don't you... I don't know, _talk to her_?”, Sam asked, and the RED engineer sighed, shaking his head as he put the dirty plate down in the RED kitchen.  Gabriel found himself automatically filling the sink with hot water and dish detergent, though he kept his ears tuned for his friend's answer.  Sam's question was on his mind as well, if he was honest: before, he had thought that the engineer and his wife had a messy break-up, but now that he'd paid attention to the others for once, he had seen that they still talked, and _happily_ at that.  It hadn't seemed like it was at all impossible for Grant to patch things up with his ex-wife; however, he knew that he didn't know all of the facts, and the engineer had always been adamant that his marriage was over.  Heaving a sigh, his teammate sat down in the kitchen chair, rubbing a hand over his face.

“...Ah don't know what ah could still say that'd make a diff'rence.  Ah mean, she made it purdy clear she ain't wanna come in second place.”

“Heh, well, no woman wants to come in second place.”, Gabriel said, rolling his eyes – Sam gave him a surprised look but didn't speak up again, allowing him to continue while washing the platters.  “But if she doesn't see how devoted you are to your Lynn and how easily you still talk, then no offense, but she's blind.  And deaf.”

“And then you could definitely do better, Grant.”, Sam added, rolling her eyes.  “I find it horrible for the woman you love to give you an ultimatum like that.”  However, the next second, Gabriel found her turning to him instead, pushing up imaginary sleeves and taking a kitchen towel to dry off the first of the platters.  “...In case you hadn't noticed, these came from my team's kitchen, and I intend to put them back where I took them.”

“Ah, bien.”, Gabriel admitted, kissing her on the cheek before rinsing off the second platter and looking around the kitchen.  “...So, uh, are we eatin' here today or are we goin' to the town and eatin' at the bar?”

“Well, now's a bit late fer askin' yew two tuh cook fer us.”, Grant responded drily, and Sam snorted in reply.

“Well, not just that, but I don't think you'd get Theo and Archie in your dining room.  I'm afraid three months with me has spoiled them, they have standards nowadays when it comes to their food.”  She grinned as she spoke, Gabriel noticed, and she winked at him a second after she'd spoken to show that she was teasing.  Grant rose to the bait completely intuitively.

“'Ey, what's wrong with th'RED dinin' room?  In case y'hadn't noticed, Gabriel eats 'ere all the time!”

“Yeah, and _it shows_ -”, Sam said, and finally Gabriel couldn't keep his laughter in anymore: dropping the final platter back into the soapy water, he laughed so loudly that the entire kitchen seemed to shake from it.  Grant winced, and Sam merrily laughed along with him, shaking her head.  “...oh, Grant, you're so easy to fool...”, she admitted, winking at the engineer and softening his somewhat disgruntled glare to a more subdued look of annoyance.

“Sam, pardner, yeh oughta be a li'l more considerate of us over here at RED, we keep yer lover in check when y'ain't 'round tuh do so-”

“Grant, ya make that sound like I'm some kind of animal that needs a cage, c'est pas comme ça.”, the RED pyro ground out, picking up the final platter again and rinsing it off before turning around to Grant for adding the firmly deprecating look that went along with his words.  Unsurprisingly, Sam also gave the engineer a less-than-forgiving look.

“I think that's a little exaggerated, don't you?  I mean, _you_ did keep an eye on Gabriel, but the rest of your team, with Billy as an understandable exception, could've cared less about him until I joined up with BLU.  No one apart from Billy and you seemed to give a damn about him.  And if I'm honest, even if a lot more have warmed up to him, there's still at least four guys on each team that wouldn't shed a tear about him if he'd die tomorrow.  Now that I know the reason for that-”

“Qu-quoi?”  Gabriel looked at his girlfriend incredulously, knowing instinctively what she spoke of but even then somehow unable to believe that she really _knew_ about it.  But then, as she continued, he found his disbelief ebbing away in favor of a warm fondness that nothing else had given him before.

“I had a talk with Gabriel's psychiatrist which was very enlightening.  She told me that, when Gabriel's best friend on both teams died in a fire, not only did you guys _not_ console him, not only did you guys _not_ notice the incredible hurt he was going through, you also _blamed_ him.  _To this very day_.  And then, to make matters even _worse_ , not one of you had any qualms about sleeping with him after it happened, despite everything you'd done.  You thought Gabriel was a sick man for doing what he did, but you did _nothing_ to stop it and _nothing_ to understand what made him do so.  Gabriel thought everyone hated him, and any affection you gave – you, and everyone on the teams at that time – made him believe a little more that that wasn't the case.  But meanwhile you kept pushing him deeper and deeper, because you didn't stop distrusting him, and you didn't stop locking him out.”

“S-sam, pardner... I-it ain't like tha'... we... we had no other choice but tuh b'lieve-”

“You had plenty of choices, Grant, don't try and bullshit your way out of this.  Gabriel was proven to be innocent.  What's more, Gabriel was _visibly_ bereft – even if you guys all thought he and Lander were just sleeping around, you should've noticed that Gabriel was grieving – and none of you was enough of a _human being_ to sympathize with him, or to even ask him to talk about what he and Lander had had.  ...Oh, believe me, I think we all need to have a _very lengthy_ talk about that, but for now, let's suffice with me saying that it is _reprehensible_ what you did.  The only ones that are exempt from it are Billy, Archie, you, the medics on both our teams, Arsène, and Radovan and Yaroslav – the medics because they knew about Gabriel's psychiatric reports and knew everything that he told doctor Hayakawa, you because you are Gabriel's on-site supervisor and were briefed about Gabriel's admissions about Lander, and the others because they weren't around yet, or long enough, at the time Lander died.  Not even Dell, as much as I respect and adore him, walks away clean from this.”

“Suhmantha-”, Grant tried again, but Sam shook her head and grabbed Gabriel's hands, drying them off.

“Gabriel didn't deserve to be treated like filth for five years.  I am never going to stop blaming everyone that happily indulged in it, and I am not going to stop blaming you or Rudolf for _not stopping it_.  I don't hate you, and neither does Gabriel – but if we did hate you, we'd be right to do so, and you _know_ it.  ...Come on, Gabriel, we're going to BLU side, see if Billy and Archie want to join us for dinner.”, she said, and the tall pyro didn't hesitate in following her, giving Grant a soft, somewhat pitying look in passing.  Sam was right – his heart nearly _sang_ at the thought.  Both teams had been blaming him for five years, mistrusting him and seeing his misbehavior as justification instead of acknowledging what it really was: an escape of the hurt, a way to reassure himself that his second chance hadn't died along with Lander in that fire.  He'd felt guilty for so long... but now, with her and because of her, it'd stop.  The soft-spoken voice in his mind was no longer _alone_ in saying that he was not to blame for the death of the man that had been too close to him.  It felt like years of continued grief and hurt were being washed away with each step he took, and that feeling invigorated him enough to wrap his arm around Sam's waist as they walked.

 

“...Sam, li'l lady, 's the second time yeh've passed by mah way...”  Hearing Dell's weary voice made Sam double back into the corridor she'd just run out of to walk up to the engineer.  “Lift yer mask.”

“If I was Pierre, Dell, I wouldn't be _running_.  I've been running in circles all morning trying to keep this _bloody_ intel out of RED's hands.”, Sam reacted somewhat irritably, dousing the engineer and his gear in a steady spurt of burning gasoline – the man only barely held back a gasp of surprise.

“Now, S'mantha-”

“I don't really want to hear it.  I'm in a bad mood-”, she offered, running a hand through her messy hair and meaning to pull her mask back over her head only to be stopped by the Texan's hand.

“Yeah, ah noticed.  _Th'entire team_ noticed, tuh be honest.  What's th'matter?  Did mah young'uns askin' yew tuh make 'em fireworks upset yeh?  Did meetin' Dante's doctor go badly?”

“No.”, Sam said, looking away from the engineer before looking back into his eyes.  A part of her was still fond of the engineer, but ever since she'd heard doctor Hayakawa say that both teams had been blaming Gabriel for the death of Lander even though he'd had no part in it, she couldn't help but see him as one of the men that had driven her boyfriend to the extremes he'd indulged in for so long.  In the end, however, she decided to be honest at least to Dell, musing that he was reasonable enough to understand how knowing what she knew made her feel.  “...I had a good talk with Gabriel's psychiatrist.  But she told me that, when Lander died, you all suspected Gabriel of having lit the fire that killed him.  You all didn't see how close Gabriel and Lander were, didn't see how it was more than just lust between them... didn't see how _devastated_ Gabriel was when Lander died...  You blamed him.”

“Yeah... that weren't exactly our finest moment, Sam, li'l lady, an' we all know it.  When the police said Lander had t'have lit the fire 'imself, that it were an accident... we _apologized_.”

“Did you?”, Sam asked, blinking.  “The way I heard it, you didn't trust him much before it happened, and you didn't trust him at all afterwards.”

“...Well, actually, that ain't too far from the truth, Sam.”, the engineer admitted.  “He were bad when he started 'ere – weren't no night where he _ain't_ started a fire – an' Lander made 'im worse.  An' when Lander were gone... well, it was like he'd been holdin' back all along...”

“Because he drank himself into a stupor and started sleeping with anyone willing.”, Sam guessed – when Dell sighed and nodded, she groaned.  “...Dell, if Missy died, how would _you_ deal with it?”

“Ah'd be _a damn ghost'f a man._ ”, Dell said, looking at his hands for a second before shaking his head and stubbornly persisting.  “...But me an' Missy, 's diff'rent from Lander an' Gabriel, Sam.  Yeh know tha'.  They were friends, sure, an' they slept t'gether, jus' like yew an' him do now-”

“So what, neither of them had any feelings?  Having a relationship without strings or promises of commitment doesn't mean that there's _nothing_ there, Dell!  They were friends.  Gabriel and Lander talked just as much as you and I do, and about subjects that were just as deep as the things we talk about at times.  They actually shared a lot of common interests _beside_ their fire-cravings-”

“Like wha'?”, Dell asked somewhat challengingly, causing Sam to snort.

“Like _chemistry –_ Gabriel has a master's degree in applied chemistry, did you know that?  Do you think anyone on Gabriel's team knows that, excepting maybe Grant?  Do you think anyone ever bothered to find out?  ...Or like their love for special effects in movies... or their struggles with their parents over their sexuality... or the fact that they both ran from their firestarting and wanted to get cured more than anything in the world...  Gabriel told me, this Sunday morning, that he and Lander even had plans to get the same tattoo.  _Nobody_ on _either_ team noticed how close they were – _everyone_ stopped looking when they saw the burns on their hands and smelled the scent of smoke around them.  It's horrible – no, it's worse than horrible, it's _reprehensible_.  And none of you walk away clean from it, not even you, Dell.”  Silence hung over the two for the longest time – though 'silence' was a misnomer, considering that the battle was still in full swing past the staircases – until finally, Dell sighed and spoke in a soft, demure tone.

“...Okay, yeh do have a point, none'a us really gave Gabriel a chance.  But still... they ain't never spoke 'bout the other.  Sure, Lander were a shy, quiet sort, but he talked t'us easy enough.  'Specially to Yaroslav, who were new back then – Yaro' looked up t'Lander.  If'n he an' Gabriel were doin' somethin' other 'n screw 'round-”

“Gabriel and Lander did _a lot more_ than 'screw around', Dell, but they maybe didn't think you'd believe that, and they weren't wrong.”, Sam said, sighing when Dell pushed up his goggles to roll his eyes.

“Now, Sam, li'l lady, if'n they wanted t'be properly involved, don't yeh think they would'a talked t'us about their... 'thing'?”, Dell responded, and Sam straightened her posture, her eyes boring into the engineer's hardhat.

“Pfeh, see?  You're proving me right.  They probably didn't think you'd believe them if they said that they were good friends because they also slept together.  Or maybe that you'd forbid them to see each other anymore like you forbade me and Gabriel.”

“Yeh can't start no good relationship on a basis like they did, Sam-”, Dell tried again, only for the pyro to cut him off.

“Since when are you my keeper, or Gabriel's?  Have a little faith in me and him!  It's almost like you believe that Gabriel and I don't have a proper relationship – is that it?”, Sam said – her tone was light but the edge in it was undeniable, even to Dell, who blanched and shook his head, hastily correcting his error.

“N-naw, 'course ah don't believe tha'!  But yew... 's what yeh told Archie, an' Archie told me 'cause ah asked 'im.  Kid told us all tha'!”

“Yes, well, that was true until two weeks ago.  But ever since the waterbattle and the barbecue, we've decided to be truthful to ourselves and the rest of the world and we've committed to each other.  And you _know_ that!”, she said – Dell's look at her was incredulous for a split second too long, and Sam flared up instantly.  “ _For God's sake,_ Dell, Gabriel and I told your children that we'd get married!  Do you think we were lying to them?!”

“Now, Sam, yeh could'a been!”, the engineer defended himself, adding on hastily: “S-so what happened t'make yew an' Dante serious then?”  Sam blushed instantly at the mere thought of what had happened, and her answer was somewhat evasive as a result.

“...You're better off not knowing.  Take my word for it, Dell.  ...Oh, that's probably my cue...”, she said as the sound of a cloaking device sounded faintly from beyond the entrance into the room Dell had set up his 'nest' in, pulling her gas mask halfway over her face again; however, she still was aware that the engineer had changed the subject away from the way Gabriel was being treated and she felt the need to add one last sentence to the man before pulling the mask which would muffle her words all the way on again.  “...Dell, I'm going to need to have a long talk with _everyone_ this weekend, about Gabriel and the way he's been treated for years now.  I wouldn't wish that kind of treatment on my worst enemy.”

“...Awrigh', Sam, li'l lady, but _git goin'_ now.”, the engineer replied, nervously looking around.  Sam nodded, the gas mask fixed in front of her face again in a heartbeat and her flamethrower spewing burning gasoline in a second after that.  Pierre's whereabouts soon became clear as she turned to the closest corner of the room: the RED spy had been standing ready to sink his butterfly knife into Dell's back, but the instant his clothes ignited, he dropped all his previous plans and ran away, foolishly enough exposing his back to Sam's flamethrower that made short work of the man.  “...Now tha''s one _well-done_ spah...”

“Hhhh khhhhth thrrrrr hhhkhhhnnnn.  Hhhmm phhhh phhhkh.”, Sam said softly before trudging back outside, switching her flamethrower for her fireaxe, feeling in the mood to get up close and personal to the first man foolish enough to cross her now.  Running up the stairs and past the heavy doors that hid their respawn room from sight, she hardly noticed the footsteps running behind her until she heard a whisper a few steps away from the hallway that'd lead her back to the frontline.

“Samantha...”  The voice, along with the accent that lay heavily on each sound, made it overly clear who was talking to her.  She halted and pulled her gas mask off again, doing so more out of sheer surprise rather than wanting to speak unintelligibly.

“Arsène?”  Looking behind her, she noticed Graeme leaning casually against the wall, speaking with the voice of her own team's spy.

“...I over'eard you talk to Dell about Gabriel.  I... 'ad no idea...”

“Well, you weren't yet here at the time, and Gabriel told me about your predecessor, Marc Rochefort, and about how he never was anything but polite to him – distant, and definitely not interested in Gabriel after what happened to Lander and the way my charming boyfriend behaved due to his grieving, but polite and understanding.  I can't blame you for anything.  The same goes for Archie and Billy and Radovan, they all weren't here yet, and Yaroslav, who _was_ here already but only a few weeks so he didn't know Gabriel well enough to judge him-”

“Pierre also over'eard.”, the spy then said, and Sam blinked, prompting Arsène to explain: “...Zee cloakink device you 'eard, was mine, not 'is – 'e 'eard it all, and 'e is probably tellink ton amant everysink.”

“Well, Gabriel can know.  I mean, I did tell him I wanted to have a good long talk to our teams about it.”, Sam admitted, looking at Arsène with a soft smile before adding: “Thank you, by the way.”

“I 'aven't done anysink, ma belle.”, the spy said; the surprise and genuine bewilderment in his voice caused Sam to chuckle and wink at him.

“Oh, you've done more than you had to – you didn't say you disapproved, but you do, and that means a lot to me, mon ami.  I'm glad Gabriel and I have you on our side, as well as Archie and Billy.”

“Bien sûr, Sam, you 'ave me on your side.  Now... I sink our collègues from RED 'ave been missink your charme and your fire for too long-”, the spy said with a grin that Sam promptly mirrored before pulling the mask back in place and answering the sentiment with muffled but clear-to-guess words.

“Thmmmn hhhhthshhh khhh hhhnth shhrrrrphrrrrshh thmmmm!”

 

“Gabriel, son, c'n ah have a talk t'yeh?”  Grant's question didn't surprise the tall pyro: Sam's argument with Dell had been relayed to him and Grant by Pierre, who sounded mildly upset when he reached the part where the BLU pyro had spoken about how it was reprehensible how her team had been treating him.  The RED engineer had been surprisingly silent until Pierre had finished talking, at which point he'd softly said that Pierre should return back to the fight and that Gabriel needed to check for Arsène's presence a little more in the direct vicinity of his temporary resupply base.  It had been clear that the Georgian engineer had been mulling things over in his mind at the time, and Gabriel had been patiently waiting for the moment when he'd decided what he'd say to who, and how he'd say it.

What _did_ surprise Gabriel, however, was the time and place the engineer had chosen – Gabriel was halfway into his food preparations, having filleted some fish and cleaned some leek to go with it – as well as the first words that Grant followed his question with.

“...'s about what Pierre _ain't_ said.”

“What Pierre didn't say?  I... think ya lost me there.  He pretty much said everything, didn't he?”, the pyro said, throwing the skins and the few stray bones he'd still found in the fish he'd filleted away with a look of disgust before rinsing his hands and then giving his friend his full attention.  “...Okay, bien, I'll bite – what _didn't_ Pierre say, then?”

“Yew an' Suhmantha, yeh're serious.  ...Well, ah were already purdy sure Sam was serious 'bout yew, but yeh're serious 'bout her too, ain'tcha?”

“What kind of question's _that_ supposed to be, mon ami?  If you have to ask, then you've clearly not been listenin' properly.  Yeah, I'm serious about her.  Je l'aime.  C'est plus, beaucoup plus, que le désir et l'amitié.  C'est... tout.  Elle est d'venue ma vie.  Ma seule raison.  ...I love her like you love Carol, like Dell loves his épouse... I love her like Pierre loves Archie's mom – just as much, just as deeply, just as... madly.  An' she loves me back in just the same way.  ...Mais quoi, t'as pas vu que je lui tient la main?  Pourquoi j'le ferais si c'est pas une promesse de lui tenir toujours?”, he followed up in French, knowing that the engineer didn't understand what he'd said but that he could deduce what he needed to take from his words from the tone alone.  Just as he'd expected, Grant sighed and shook his head, responding almost word-for-word as he'd mentally predicted.

“...Now, Gabriel, yeh know I don't speak French enough t'make sense'f tha'...  So say tha' again, in _plain English_ if yeh can-”

“I said, didn't you see me hold Sammy's hand all day last Saturday?  If we were just fuckin' around, would I do that?  No, I wouldn't.”, he answered his own question, cutting off Grant's protest and then adding in a softer voice: “...Every time I hold her hand, it's a promise to never let her go; an' every time I let go of her hand, it's a promise to grab hold of it again soon.  Bein' apart from her is torture – but I can bear bein' kept apart from her as long as I get to see her in battle, and in the weekends...”  Almost, he added 'and on Wednesdays' but he caught himself just in time, turning his intake of breath into a sigh that was more sincere than he'd been able to admit to himself.  The thought of seeing Sam always instantly reminded him of the fact that their Wednesday nights were shared in clandestine – neither team knew about it, save for Archie and Billy who covered for their absences and to whom they had a debt greater than they could repay – and that wasn't a pleasant thought by far.  Gabriel and Sam both preferred to _not_ sneak around behind everyone's back, but they felt driven to it by the circumstances, half of which stood in front of Gabriel now, looking at him like he was expecting Gabriel to continue.  Rather than do so instantly, however, Gabriel first pushed the leek into the soup pot to stew, after which he put his kitchen knife in the sink and turned away from the engineer for a second longer to wash his hands, though he already spoke up as he let the cold water rinse the strongly fragrant leek juices off his hand.  “...She's _great_ for me, Grant – she's what makes me cope as well as I'm doin' right now.”

“Yeh're doin' okay, yeah.  Y'ain't lit no fires yet... an' yeh haven't stolen anyone's liquor...”, the engineer admitted, nudging his head at the pots and pans on the stove next as he added: “An' yer cookin''s sure an improvement over what y'gave us 'fore yew an' Sam sorted things out.  An' that's sayin' somethin', pardner.  ...Well, ah guess yew an' her behave well 'nough... ah'll have a talk t'Dell next weekend 'bout whether we kin let the two'a yeh back outside-”

“Really?!”  It was said before he even realized it himself: Gabriel found himself looking at his confidant and friend in clear joy and outright disbelief.  “...I mean, t'es pas en train d'rigoler ou d'chose comme ça, ouais?  T'es _sérieux_ , oui?  Please tell me ya _mean_ that...”

“Hell, _calm down_ , Dante...”, Grant said a little overwhelmed, taking a literal step back from Gabriel, towards the door.  However, a second later, he grinned and nodded.  “...Yeah, ah'm serious.  ...Thing is, Dante, son, them things Suhmantha said 'bout how yeh been treated, by our team an' theirs... hell, even if'n we ain't _meant_ t'treat yeh like tha', 's still bad.  An'... an' tha' li'l lady'a yers 's right when she says it's 'bout time we started treatin' yeh a li'l better.  It's gon' take some time 'fore we'll git t'where we need tuh be, but-”  Gabriel cut off his next words by throwing his arms around the short, stocky engineer and lifting him clean off the ground in a bear hug.  “H-hey now, pardner, put me down!”, Grant said a little shakily, which got Gabriel to give him a shy grin before feeling elation come over him again, making him speak rapidly in French.

“Oh mon dieu, c'est ... J'peux pas t'remercier assez! Grant, t'as juste fait de moi l'homme le plus heureux de ce côté de l'océan! J'peux voir Sam à chaque fois que je veux! J'ai plus de se faufiler partout avec elle! Je te promets ... J'te promets nous comportons d'appoint bien sur le champ de bataille et dans les soirées - pas de relâchement, pas de distraction, pas en perdre le sommeil, mais rien de dévouement et de se concentrer!  ...Oh, Grant, if you wouldn't hit my head clean off for it, I'd _kiss_ ya, you Georgian miracle!”

“'Ey, now, don't yeh go 'round throwin' kisses 'round, 'specially tuh me, y'hear, Gabriel?”, Grant said semi-sternly, grinning as he shook his head and scratched through his auburn hair somewhat uneasily.  Once he'd seemed to gather his thoughts again, he spoke on, his tone serious and his eyes telling of the friendship he had built up with the taller man: “...Now 's jus' a suggestion – if'n Dell has objections, yeh'll have tuh understand.  An' yeh'll have tuh be on yer best behavior, yew an' Sammy.”

“J'te promets, nous nous comportons d'appoint bien – mieux qu'autrefois.  Mille fois mieux.  J'peux te jamais remercier pour ta confiance, mon ami... Grant, ya know this is what I need, an' I can't ever thank you enough for trustin' me enough...”

“Yeah, yeah, ah know...”, the engineer said, patting Gabriel's back gently.  “Jus'... don't go repayin' the kindness by robbin' all'a us 'f our sleep again, or tha' trust ain't gon' live long 'nough-”  Gabriel cut him off with a nod and then shooed the man out of the kitchen to turn his full attention to his food again; the moment Grant exited the kitchen, he started having a muffled conversation with Rudolf, the pyro noticed with a soft smile.  If his team's medic came to bother him, he'd tolerate the man and even be able to forget all of the stern treatment he'd suffered at the man's hands in the past, he thought.

“Donc, bien, notre diner... j'faux faire quelque chose à peu près mangeable de ce poisson...  Ah, okay!”, he suddenly said, walking briskly to the fridge and taking out a small packet of cream that he poured over the fish fillets, allowing it to simmer briefly, adding a little more pepper to the mix before switching the fire off and lifting the pan, carrying it inside.  “...Alright, ya sorry lot, fish fillet with cream sauce and leek mash – the mash is comin' up, hold your horses, okay?”

“Smells like a dream, Dante!”, John said loudly, grinning from ear to ear, and Billy merely licked his lips, clearly salivating at the scent of the food alone, before digging in, leaving Gabriel to quickly finish his mash – it took no more than two minutes to pour the potatoes into a colander, mash them, mix in the stewed leek, and then season the mash before carrying it in to the men that dug into the second pot the instant it touched the table.  Normally that would irk Gabriel, making him feel a little pressured, but now he took it as a compliment to his kitchen skills.

“You all clearly love this recipe-”

“Are you kiddin', son?  This 'ere's better fish 'n mah old grandma – god rest 'er – used t'make!”, Grant admitted in between eager mouthfuls of fish and cream, something that the others wasted no time in asserting to him.  However, Gabriel continued, grinning softly as he sat down between the scout and the engineer and helped himself to his own portion of the food.

“-but ya should taste Sammy's cookin', it's _amazing_.  She manages to make instant noodles taste like _haute cuisine_ , I swear-”

“Pah, tha''s just 'cause yoo love 'er, lad...”, Graeme said, looking amused by the sight of him, and the rest of his teammates seemed equally bemused.  However, Gabriel didn't even notice – and if he noticed, he wouldn't care.  He felt free, knowing that his friend would have a talk to the BLU engineer and that, one way or another, that weekend would bring with it a change of direction.  For the better.

 

“...Shhhmmm...”  The battle had been in full swing, it seemed, when the horn sounded and the announcement was made that BLU had won the round: instantly, Gabriel dropped his weapon and raised his hands, pulling off his gas mask.  “...Sammy, mon ange... don't shoot me, okay?  I... have to confess...”

“Confess what?”, Sam asked, still a little out of breath from wrestling her fellow pyro to the ground before and having to get up from the ground again at top speed when he'd managed to throw her off after that.  He rolled his eyes and looked her over emphatically, causing her to blush and give him a half-grin.  Of course he'd _enjoyed_ being roughly shoved to the ground by her before, and _of course_ he'd been thrilled to find her half-kneeling over him, one knee pressing his chest to the ground and the other leg steadying herself for the swing she'd intended to take with her fireaxe.  “...Okay, but what can we do about it?  If we're missing for even a second too long-”

“J'sais, je sais... but I... can we meet again tonight?”, he asked, his voice barely concealing the hint of added heat in his tone, causing her to blush a little more profusely.  Her mind and her body were both screaming 'yes' in reply, but she had just enough grasp on herself to softly speak reason and deny herself what they clearly both wanted.

“I... that's risky... I've already asked Archie to cover for us yesterday, I can't...  I'd love to see you again tonight, mon amour, but if we're not careful...”  She sighed when Gabriel nodded, clearly let down – and suddenly, before she even knew it herself, she'd closed the distance between herself and Gabriel and had her lips pressed tightly against his, standing on tiptoe to reach him.  He kissed her back eagerly, not even hesitating for a second before prying her lips apart and enticing her to properly appreciate the taste of him – the slightest tinge of something metallic mingling with the taste of what was clearly the lunch he'd had an hour before, something with cream cheese and rye bread.  “...Okay...”, she admitted breathlessly as they broke apart, answering his grin with one of her own before tacking on: “Better run back quickly now, love, before they think we're misbehaving.”

“Oh, believe me, I'll be back in respawn in five seconds.  A ce soir, mon ange...”

“At the door by midnight, mon amour.”, she responded, reloading her shotgun as she ran to make it look like she'd actually gone out hunting for Gabriel instead of already having fought him.   Dashing into the main respawn room, she found most of the team already there, with the exception of Dell and Arsène.  The engineer entered the room from the back, showing he'd been shot before the match ended in their favor, and Arsène came in a second or three later the same way she had, causing her to smile at the spy.

“Who did _you_ chase?”

“Ah, ma chère amie, I 'ad zee eemense pleasure takink apart Grants machinery een front of 'is eyes and then shootink 'im through zee 'ead.”, he admitted with a somewhat guilty smile, and she accurately guessed that there had also been some measure of trash-talking involved before, on the RED engineer's end.

“Best not go too close to him in the next round then – oh well, I've spent a good minute chasing Gabriel down and then sending him to respawn.”, she said, doing her utmost best not to react when Arsène raised an eyebrow.  However, just before the voice of the Administrator would sound from the speakers, a loud curse came from the back room.

“ _Aw hell naw!_ ”  The voice was familiar enough for the rest of the team to look at the doorway into the respawn platform, seeing that it was indeed Grant who had ended up in a perfectly identical copy of Dell's uniform, managing to look like a slightly younger version of the BLU engineer.  “Well, shee-yiiiit, that's 'nother call tuh the comp'ny... darn it, ah thought they'd fixed tha' damn glitch by now!”, the Georgian said, muttering heartfelt curses while making his way over to the telephone, dialling a short number before speaking in his usual gruff tone.  “...Yeah, miss Paulin', 's Grant Dillinger, from the base near Jacksonville.  We got 'nother respawn glitch – hell, 's the second time this year... yeah, ah _know_ it ain't supposed t'happen, but it _happened_!  ...Full system overhaul?  How long's that gon' take?  ...Mmhmm... well, 'course me an' Dell are gon' help y'all, if'n tha' there respawn fails we're dead so we need it in prime condition!  ...Ah, yeah, ah see.  Awright, ah'll tell 'im.  Thanks, miss Paulin'.”  He put the receiver back down and turned to the proper BLU team with a sigh: “...No more fightin' fer t'day an' possibly t'morrah – respawn system's gittin' a full system overhaul.  Dell, they's gon' be here in an hour, we oughta be waitin' down in th'system room fer 'em.  Miss Paulin' also asked if'n we could already run some diagnostics on tha' there system, figure out where the bug's at-”

“'m On it.”, Dell assured him, turning to the rest of the team.  “Well, y'all heard Grant, git goin' back tuh base.  Arsène, mind runnin'-”

“I weel update zee RED team.”, the spy said, slipping out of the respawn room again and running off – as his footsteps died away, Dell turned to Sam with a somewhat rueful sigh.

“Sam, yeh're gon' have tuh cook fer our team alone t'night, unless Siegfried feels inclined t'help yew...”

“Oh, that's okay, I can manage.”, she admitted, smiling at the engineer and winking at the medic, who seemed pleased with her answer, after which she walked out through the side door, back to the base, following Archie.  The scout looked at her in surprise but didn't voice his wonder, seeming to know instinctively that she meant to explain to him once they were in their room.

“So, bet ya ain't all unhappy that we're gettin' an early weekend...”, he guessed, and Sam sighed.

“Well, it's not exactly an 'early weekend', I still won't be able to spend tomorrow with Gabriel – for all we know, the respawn system's fixed by tomorrow morning, and even if it isn't, once it's up and running again, we'll be expected to gear up and get ready for battle in record time.  ...But, uh, speaking of me and Gabriel...”, she tacked on, not impervious for the way her friend's expression changed to that half-annoyed, half-knowing grin he always got when she was about to ask him to cover for her, “...could you, uh, cover for me again tonight?”

“Pfeh, ya gonna owe me – but sure.  I ain't gonna fail ya, sistah!  But, uh, 's two nights in a row, ya know...”, he said, and Sam rolled her eyes as she turned around, her fireproof suit already off to reveal her sweaty, soot-stained T-shirt and shorts combination she preferred to wear underneath.

“Your point?”

“My point is, you an' Dante gotta be careful.  Say _no_ ta each otha once in a while.  Or at least try to say no.  ...Okay, uh, ya can go showah now.”, he said when Sam took her towels and her toiletry bag from her cupboard.  “...Ya probably need more time ta make dinnah, an' with ya, uh, gettin' an early night's sleep...”, he said airily, grinning from ear to ear as he spoke and prompting Sam to answer him in kind.

“Yeah, it wouldn't do if I missed sleep because I have to spend half the evening washing dishes.  The only ones that are going to be working tonight is _Dell and Grant_.  Not me.”  Winking at her friend, she set off for the showers, feeling more and more elated as she went.

The rest of the day passed in a flash: washing, preparing dinner – for which she got help from Yaroslav, the heavy Russian muttering something about 'little pyro doesn't need to make big dinner alone' along with something in his native language that she didn't need him to translate to know it was an expression of affection – and then washing the dishes.  At ten in the evening, she sat on the edge of her bed, reading, when her cellphone bleeped to indicate she'd gotten a message.  She didn't need to guess who it was from: clearly Gabriel was just as elated as she was at the prospect of spending another few hours of quality time with her.  The message was short and simple but spoke much more than just the words that it contained: ' _Sooner, jtep, grant and dell are gone anyways, j'peux pas attendre. <3 Gabriel'_  Grinning broadly, she quickly typed a reply, ignoring Archie's teasing look – _'Okay be there in two mon amour <3' –_ and then put her book down.  “Archie-”

“I know, I know, 'Sammy's asleep now, so no interruptin' unless ya want a fireaxe in ya forehead' – man, ya can really be paranoid if ya wanna, sistah... nobody's gonna come knock on ya door!  ... _Have fun_ with ya _fiyah-crazy boyfriend_ -”

“Yeah, well, you have fun with your right hand, Arch'...”, Sam said with a crooked grin before heading quickly out to the separate bathrooms, unlocking the door quickly and then walking briskly on to the other side to pull Gabriel through and into her arms.  He didn't waste any time in kissing her needfully, pressing the both of them as close to the wall as he could manage.

“T'm'as tellement manquée, mon ange...  I swear, I couldn't think about anythin' else all day, but _you_ , and how I'd get to hold ya again...”, he admitted somewhat breathlessly the moment she tangled her hand in his hair, prompting a broad, somewhat self-satisfied grin from her.

“You were on my mind as well today, mon amour.  That one kiss was nowhere near enough to ease my thoughts again... I _need you_ -”

“Then what are we still standin' around for?”, Gabriel said, pulling her along to the medbay from where they'd stolen the mattresses off the beds to make a little place for their nights together.  “...Thank God our respawn's glitchy...”, he muttered, and Sam snorted but didn't answer verbally, kissing her boyfriend again, making anything else he'd meant to say leave his mouth as 'mnnn'.  However, just as Gabriel's hands finally found the hem of her nightgown, they were rudely interrupted.

“Sam, what in Gawd's name's the meanin' 'f _this_?!”  Instantly, she and Gabriel turned around to find Dell standing in the doorway to the medbay, looking tired and _livid_.  Instantly, Sam realized that she'd forgotten to close the door in her haste – and of course Dell had heard them.  And he didn't stop at shouting: grabbing her wrist, he pulled her upright and outside of the room, ignoring her protests and Gabriel's shouts to let her go or risk getting decked.  “Dawntahn, git to yer room an' stay out'f this, ah'll have a talk t'Grant 'bout _yew_ an how _yew_ indulged _her_ later, y'kin be sure'a that!  S'mantha Tennant, what d'yew have tuh say fer yerself, _disobeyin' direct orders_?!”, he barked, and Sam looked into his eyes a little helplessly.

“Dell, it... I couldn't function, and then I remembered t-these rooms... the separate bathroom, the medbay... a-and I figured-”

“Ah _know_ what yeh figured – 'ain't no harm in missin' a couple'a hours 'f sleep once or twice a week, it ain't gon' impact mah performance none' – but _how in th'name'a Gawd_ did yeh think it'd end?  We ain't s'gested yew an' Gabriel stay apart durin' the week fer _the fun'f it_!  Yer battle performance-”  Sam was vaguely aware of the sleepy, somewhat disgruntled faces appearing in doorways behind the engineer, but she felt powerless in the conversation, something that showed from her tone as she tried in vain to interrupt the engineer.

“B-but my performance in battle's been good-”

“-an' yeh need tuh stay focused, not run 'round thinkin' of when yeh're gonna git'cher some 'gain with _Gabriel fuckin' Dawntahn!_   Git inside yer room – Archie, yew an' I are gon' need tuh have a talk in the mornin' too-”  It was that last mention that had Sam find her footing again, as well as promote a prickle of indignant rage inside of her.  Pulling her hand loose, she straightened her back and looked at Dell.

“No.”

“ _Git inside_ , S'mantha, ah ain't kiddin'-”

“Neither am I, Dell.  God help me, you're like a father to me, but if you and everyone else don't stop being so bloody impossible and start _owning up_ to the fact that Gabriel and I are not just keeping each other awake but that we're _serious_ about each other, then I'm going to have to _punch_ some sense into your thick skulls!  This is – this _has been –_ torture, Dell, and I'm not just talking about the fact that me and Gabriel have to miss each other during the week, for whatever reasons we may have for wanting to be together-”

“All yew an' him are int'rested in 's sex, Suhmantha, don't yeh try an' deny it, ah _know_ what kind'f position ah would'a found y'in if'n ah'd arrived a minute later!”, the engineer said, and Sam flushed red in slight shame and overpowering rage.  She clenched her fists, pressing her fingernails into her skin to keep it in check as she answered.

“Dell, you of all people should understand that there's a difference between getting off and making love.  And you _know_ there's more between me and Gabriel than just need, I told you so myself last Tuesday!  For god's sake, Gabriel and I _told your kids we'd get married someday_!  You don't _lie_ about something like that, not even to children – _especially_ not to children!  _Gabriel's met my brother and his girlfriend!  I sat in on his psych evaluation!_ Not even _Billy_ sat in on his psych evaluation, not once, but Gabriel trusts me enough to tell me _everything!_ How can you still pretend everything between me and him is physical and nothing more?!”  Sighing, she looked the engineer in the eye again: “Now this _ends_ tonight-”

“Yeh got tha' right.  Sam, yeh're confined tuh _quarters_ fer th'weekend-”

“What?!”  Gabriel's exclamation served to remind her that her boyfriend was still standing by his side – and if that didn't remind her, then the fact that he pulled her against him, his arms wrapped around her shoulders and his hands shaking softly against her midriff.  “Dell, no offense, but where the fuck d'you got the _right_ to _lock Sammy up?!_ ”

“Y-yeah, ain't that a li'l, uh, _harsh_ , man?”, Archie said – the rest of the team offered no objections but also didn't seem to outright agree with the engineer either, Sam could tell.  Still, however, Dell didn't seem even the least bit stymied by the protests.

“Now y'all listen up: Sam _broke th'rules_ we laid out, she _knew_ she were wrong, an' she's gon' _face the consequences 'f her actions_ -”

“I agree, Dell.  I'll face the consequences.”, Sam said, slowly losing her grip on the rage that pressed her to _punch_ the engineer and give him a choice few remarks about what he could and couldn't do – it was that wavering hold on her anger that made her voice tremble when she added: “But those consequences will _not_ be locking me inside that bloody room for the weekend, Wendell Conagher!  I am _not_ some bloody _mule_ that you can _beat_ into submission, I am _not_ some _animal_ to be _confined_ – I am a human being, and I've got a boyfriend, and I'll be _damned if you bar me from seeing him again_ , no matter _how much I respect you_!!”

“Yeh've gotta learn t'keep yerselves in check, Sam, Gabriel – now, we tried th'easy way, but yeh still betrayed our confidence.  Now yeh'll learn the hard way.  Until y'prove yeh kin think'f the team's best int'rests instead'a yer own-”

“Oh, _fais pas rigole, Dell_ , this had got fuck-all to do with 'the team's best interests'-”, Gabriel said, and Sam meant to agree with him when Dell interrupted, seemingly finally losing the last of his patience.

“ _Git t'yer gawd-damn room, Dante, 'fore ah send yeh home with a cracked skull!  An' yew, Sam,_ ah don'' care if'n ah gotta lock yeh in a _bathroom stall_ , y'ain't seein' Gabriel this weekend an' y'ain't goin' tuh town this weekend, an' all'a the next weekends, until yeh learn t' _control yerself_ -”

“I am not taking this from you, not anymore, Dell.”, she said, the white-hot rage inside of her condensing into a shard of some ice-cold crystal right in her heart.  Turning in Gabriel's hold, she spoke curtly to her lover: “Come on, Gabriel, if Dell thinks he can treat me like _garbage_ , we might as well walk away from this _useless displacement of air_.”  Gabriel nodded grimly, taking hold of her hand and walking back towards the door, with her; she took only one step until Dell grabbed her wrist again and forcefully pulled her back.  “Let me go, Dell!”, she said loudly.

“Now y'listen up, Samantha, ah ain't gon' stand 'round an' have yeh disrespect me!  Yeh knew there'd be punishment if y'didn't live by them rules – yeh knew it were wrong tuh do what y'did-”

“It's only wrong to _you_ , Dell, and I don't even understand why!  ...Oh, this is bloody useless-”

“Yeh're damn right it is.  Take a good look at 'im, Sam, y'ain't gonna see 'im fer-”  Suddenly, Sam pulled her hand loose and gave Dell a resounding hit with the flat of her hand right against his cheek, cutting her finger on the edge of his goggles and sending a sudden and complete silence into the building.  Breathing a few times, shakily, she shook her head and looked at the wall, unable to face the engineer again.

“I said no, Dell, and I meant it.  Get this through to those brilliant brains of yours: _you can only push people so far._ You pushed this too far.  You had every right to make sure the teams slept well at night, and you had every right to tell Gabriel and me off for being as overly enthusiastic as we were, and are; but you've got _no right_ to shut me in, or to tell me Gabriel and I can't see each other because _you think_ our battle performances are bad.  You told me only yesterday that I did great, and now today you say I did bad?  You wanted me to prove you could trust me, well, then _you_ will surely have no problem proving to _me_ that my battle performance has _really_ gone down the drain.  Oh, but don't forget, you'll have to prove that it is due to me secretly seeing Gabriel and _not_ due to you _telling us we shouldn't see each other during the week_.  Until that time, I'm not listening to your rants.”  Again, she meant to walk off, but Dell grabbed her wrist again, more tightly this time, and dragged her firmly to her room, in pointed, somewhat _offended_ silence.  “Dell, I've told you-”

“Ah'm _not lettin' yew jus' go behind all'a our backs!_ Yew an' him, if'n yeh're so serious, yeh c'n wait fer each other-”  It wasn't so much the tone with which the engineer drawled out the words, or the fact that his grip on her wrist was starting to hurt, but the fact that _Dell_ was the one to say it.  Sam dug her heels into the ground as best as she could, bracing against the engineer's considerable strength, and said one word, voiced with all the angry disbelief she could muster.

“ _What?!_ ”

“Ah said, if'n yeh're so serious 'bout each other, yew an' Gabe, yeh don't go b'hind all'al our backs, yeh c'n wait fer screwin' 'round-”  She couldn't help but starting to laugh mirthlessly.  Of all the people to tell her off for not being able to keep her hands off Gabriel, it had to be Dell that told her she shouldn't have gone behind the others' backs; Dell, the engineer that she _knew_ was having a covert affair with their team's soldier.  The man seemed to catch on as well because he suddenly faltered and groaned.  “Ah mean...”

“Oh, what, are you finally going to stop taking the moral high ground, Dell?”, she asked, and he paled.

“S-sam, shit, ah'm... ah...”  The fact that he was at a loss for words, unable to backpedal on his angry promises to keep her and Gabriel apart but also unable to _keep_ those promises, fuelled the BLU pyro's words.

“You're what?  You're sorry?  You're better than that?  Better than me and Gabriel?  Pfeh, _hardly_.  Go ahead and justify it.  Loud and clear, Dell Conagher.  Tell the team...”  Gabriel, as well as the rest of her team save Archie, looked at her in clear confusion; the scout was the only one that looked shocked for the moment.

“S-sam, naw!”, Dell said, but Sam's rage got the better of her – she was unable to stop herself from speaking, she found, finally pushed by deprivation and indignant anger to the point where she disregarded her previous promise.

“Tell the team how you can justify keeping me and Gabriel apart while _you_ 've still been getting laid behind all of their backs _with Jane bloody Doe!_ ”  Instantly after the words had left her, she knew she'd gone too far, gotten too carried away: the engineer froze, as did the soldier, and the rest of the men looked at her as if the devil himself had appeared in their midst.  She felt soiled all of a sudden, down to the very core of her, and blushed, cowering away.  “...Oh _shit, shit, no..._ ”

“S-sam...”, Gabriel stammered, and Archie meant to speak up loudly when Dell cut him off, his voice soft but by no means any less angry as it'd been before.

“S'mantha Tennant, yew are _off the team_.  Git outta here, go with Gabriel, _go anywhere_ fer all ah care.  Jus' _git out_ , an' don't yeh show yer face here anymore.  Yeh're a fine lady, but if'n ah see yeh 'gain, ah'm gonna _kill_ yeh, lady 'r not.”

“N-no, Dell – DELL!!”, Sam said, softly at first but then loudly, her voice echoing in the silent hallway as the engineer walked away, his entire form shivering with anger held back – and as the rest of the team looked torn between questioning her and shying away from her, she crumpled to the floor and broke down in near-hysterical sobs.


	25. As long as I don't break things

“...Dante, son... yew an' her got intuh a real predicament...”, Grant said, causing Gabriel to groan and run a hand over his face.

“J'le sais, Grant... don't I fuckin' know it. 'Course it's not Sam's fault that Dell was being a fuckin' _asshole_ -”

“Yeah, well, yew an' her did break th'rules we imposed on yeh.”, the RED engineer said sternly, though his voice and his features softened the next moment. “...Rudolf's prob'ly gonna wanna have a word with yeh, son, 'bout Sam. They talked fer a long time.”

“Talking's all we did last night, too, mon ami – she... well, we tried, but she kept breakin' down in tears any time we... Well, anyway, I'll be sure to thank Rudolf – uh, I mean, doc Hardass.”, Gabriel said, realizing his slip-up too late. The engineer noticed it as well and he chuckled.

“Ah knew y'ain't hatin' the ol' doc. ...Well, yeh could try an' call the comp'ny, explain the situation from yer side...”

“And risk getting fired alongside Sam and sent back to l'enfer? No, thanks. I'm treadin' on thin ice as it is, havin' Sam over here-”

“Yeah, 'bout that, yeh know she ain't gonna be able tuh stay.”, Grant said softly, his grin completely gone in favor of an expression appropriate to a distant relative's deathbed: part genuine sadness, part awkwardness, part relief. “...If'n she's ac'shully fired, she's gon' have tuh give 'er brother a call-”

“Don't remind me, part of the reason why Sammy had a panic attack in the first place was because I mentioned Damien to her. She's... she thinks she let everyone down yesterday: herself, her brother, me, Dell, Jane, you... hell, I'll bet she even thinks she let _the Administrator-General_ down...”

“Well, she _did_ kind'f let herself an' everyone else down a li'l-”, Grant said; instantly, Gabriel glowered at the short, stocky Georgian, causing him to amend his statement hastily: “W-well, ah mean, Dell were th'one tuh tell 'er t'git out or he'd kill 'er, but it weren't really necessary fer her tuh... shout out th'man's secret.” Fortunately for Gabriel, however, Grant next focused on Sam's revelation instead of continuing to talk about what had happened. He had almost – _almost_ , but not actually – asked his team's doctor for some tranquilizers of his own just to find oblivion like Sam had, feeling sick to his stomach with worry about his girlfriend. It hurt him to see her in emotional and mental distress, and any distraction was more than welcome. “...Still can't b'lieve it, though. Dell an' Jane – ah mean, they ain't got nuthin' in common-”

“If I recall it properly, Sam said Dell told her 'it just happened once and then kept happening from time to time'. And they've got to have _something_ in common, they're friends too.”

“Pfeh, gotta ask Dell 'bout tha' one-”, the engineer said – instantly, Gabriel paled a little and shook his head.

“Uh, maybe not right away? Let the news reach ya from someone _other_ than me an' Sammy?”, he said, causing Grant to groan and nod.

“Hell, hadn't considered tha'. Sure, Dante, son. ...So, uh, what're yew an' yer li'l lady plannin', then? Assumin' she's fired, ah mean – there's still a chance tha' she _ain't_. Maybe Dell woke up an' reconsidered-”, the engineer offered, but that got Gabriel to snort in turn.

“Pfeh, _sure_ , he was fuckin' _beside himself_ with anger yesterday, but _today_ he'll be all 'I was kidding, Sammy' – not fuckin' likely. She's done with BLU. ...Besides, I don't want Sammy to get her hopes up only to get 'em smashed.” He turned back to the hallway, looking longingly at the door to his room, where Sam now lay in his bed, probably looking all fragile and innocent. “...J'veux la tenir, Grant. I wanna hold her and keep her safe. She maybe got carried away when Dell told her she'd be confined to quarters this weekend, but can ya blame her? Yeah, we broke the rule of not seein' each other during the week, but _who the fuck's he think he is_ ? Besides, the agreement was that our weekends were _our own_. No fightin', no need for a full night's sleep. No fuckin' objections.” Grant sighed and nodded, clearly thinking of a few objections but letting them slide for the moment, which testamented the friendship he and Gabriel had formed even better than his next words.

“...Well, ah think Dell got a li'l carried 'way too. Thought so from th'very beginnin'. He ought'a _talked_ tuh yew an' Sam first, instead'a goin' straight fer _forbiddin' y'all from seein' each other in th'week_ . ...An' ah s'pose it ain't fair t'say 'yeh agreed tuh them rules', yew an' yer li'l lady ain't had no choice after all.” Sighing, the engineer reiterated his first statement. “...Yeah, yew an' her got'cherselves in a real purdy situation now. ...Dell, too – Sam maybe blurted out 'is secret, but he _kept_ tha' there secret fer ev'ryone.”

“Oui.”, Gabriel said, sagging back into the chair he'd been sitting in as he'd been talking to Grant before to explain the situation. “Dell dupait tout le monde sur BLU et RED. Personne ne savait de lui et Jane - que je veux dire, vous fallait voir leurs visages quand Sam a tout laissé échapper son secret. Je pensais que pour une seconde, doc Steinheim allait mourir de choc. Et Arsène ... pas même il le savait, et il sait tout ce qui se passe sur son équipe. ...J'dois saluer le vieux ingénieur pour gérer de garder son secret pendant si longtemps, ça durait depuis des années et personne n'a même eu le moindre indice. Mais s'il pense que tout le monde va l'oublier maintenant, il se trompe. La licenciement de Sam l'va pas faire disparaître. Licencier Sam va tout simplement mettre l'équipe BLU de retour dans le même merde où ils étaient il ya six mois: sans leur pyro. All that firing Sammy's gonna accomplish is that BLU is without a pyro _again_.”

“Yeah, that's why ah think Dell's words maybe are gon' be a li'l, uh, _premature_ . Th'Administrator-Gen'ral spent _years_ findin' BLU a pyro that ain't got yer, uh, _affliction_ , son. Ah doubt she's gon' let Dell _fire_ 'er an' send her intuh 'nother search like tha' all over again.”

“...Huh...”, Gabriel said, blinking. He hadn't considered that approach to the situation yet. “...I'm still not callin' to the Administrator's office. N-not yet, anyways. When Sam's up again, an' if she's feelin' better, then I'll discuss the idea with her and see if she's on board with it. If she is, I'm callin' my damn self and explainin' everything honestly and from the very beginning. If she isn't... I'll see.” The pyro sighed once again, running a hand over his face again, feeling tired to the very core of his being. “J'me sens comme j'ai trop bu la nuit dernière...”

“Yeah, ah'll bet y'ain't feelin' great right now, son...”, Grant admitted, rolling his eyes before clearly taking pity on Gabriel. “...Wanna catch some sleep? Ah mean, Billy's awready outside, figure he went tuh visit Arch' over at BLU side-”

“Bet things are fuckin' _lively_ over there.”, Gabriel said, but then he nodded. “...Bien, ouais. I'll catch up on my sleep. But in my _own_ fuckin' room, not your little field bed. I wanna be close to Sam when she wakes up again.” He got up, groaning as his limbs protested, and grinned down at Grant. “...T'es un bon ami, Grant. Je souhaite juste que je n'étais pas si affreux à être plus comme toi. ...You're a great guy, Grant. I'm starting to see that your southern hospitality's more than just the ironic name you gave that wrench you use in battle.”

“Y'only startin' tuh see tha' now, huh?”, the engineer responded, though his tone indicated that he wasn't upset by Gabriel's words, instead realizing that he meant them kindly. “Now git. Catch up on yer shut-eye – if'n yew an' Suhmantha are gon' come up with a plan t'day, yeh're gon' have tuh be well rested, the both'a yew.” Gabriel nodded solemnly and walked out of the dining room, into the hallway. He came across Graeme, who just nodded his way, not speaking to him at all – the demoman seemed sympathetic to his plight, he mused as he opened the door softly, finding his team's medic sitting by Sam's bedside. The moment he noticed Gabriel, he rose from the chair he'd been occupying and walked to the door, motioning for Gabriel to come outside with him.

“I haff given her zhe same sedatives zhat Ziegfried has used zhe last time. She vill zleep for zhe rest of zhe morning. I haff also somezhink for you...”, he added, giving Gabriel a small flask that felt warm to the touch. “Zhis is zhe Kamillentee – zhe chamomile tea. You vill underztand vhy I don't vant you to take a sedative, oder nicht?”, he asked sharply, causing Gabriel to roll his eyes.

“Doc, I understand, I really fuckin' understand. Just... let's do the entire goddamn world a favor and turn over a new damn leaf? J'étais un tel idiot foiré, j'le sais, mais maintenant j'suis amélioré, grâce à elle. ...Sammy made me better 'n I used to be.”

“Zhat I vill gladly believe.”, the doctor admitted, nodding gracefully. “Zhere used to be zhe time vhen you vould razher haff died zhan come to knock on mein door, but zhis morning you vere zhere, pleadink Zamanzha's case. If not zhe changed man, she haz made you zhe _devoted_ man, und das genügt im Moment. ...Vell, don't look at it, _drink_ it, herr Dantan – it vill not help you in zhere!”, he then vocally prodded the pyro, and Gabriel nodded, screwing the lid off the flask and drinking down the contents that tasted sweet and slightly floral on his tongue. “Now go, und schlaf. Deine Fräulein soll dich brauchen im Nachmittag.”

“She's always needed me.”, Gabriel said – the doctor, for some reason, blinked, but he didn't comment, instead accepting the flask back from the pyro's scarred hands and moving back to the medbay, where he'd been working on cataloging test results. Shaking his head, Gabriel headed back inside his room, finding Sam asleep in his bed, looking just as fragile and tranquil as he'd imagined she'd look. Her brow was furrowed, even as she lay asleep, and she clutched the bedsheets tightly, having them drawn up over her head so the only thing that showed was one wisp of orange-and-brown hair and her face; but at the same time, she didn't whimper anymore as she had last time she'd tried to sleep, and when he ran his hand over the bedsheet that lay on top of her head, she sighed in her slumber. “...Ah, t'es si belle... c'est affreux, se qui s'a passé, mon ange, mais ce sera... il va bien se passer. J'suis ici avec toi, et j'vais toujours tenir à tes côtés. Quel que soit.”

“ _Mmm, 'riel..._ ”, Sam muttered in her sleep, and that was enough for the pyro to smile, feeling a little better again. He didn't bother to put on his sleepwear again, instead laying down on Billy's unmade bed fully dressed, turning so he could look at Sam even though his eyes closed almost instantly. As he felt his body grow heavy and sleep slowly grasp him, he felt light knowing that Sam was strong, maybe more so because she had him. Together, they'd work out a way.

 

“...How do ya feel, mon ange?”, Gabriel asked, and Sam gave him a somewhat rueful smile. The honest answer was 'like shit', but she didn't want to admit that because her boyfriend was doing everything he could to make sure she felt good. Especially at that particular moment, where he'd been soaping her back gently, without the least indication that he meant it as leading up to misbehaving with her. However, when she felt his hands run back up to her shoulders to massage them, kneading out the tension that had seeped into her joints without her even noticing it herself, she figured that Gabriel deserved an honest answer.

“...Like shit, mon amour, but that's... to be expected, I guess.” She quickly soaped up her stomach as Gabriel's hands moved down her back again, respectfully staying off her rear – another testament to the fact that her lover didn't feel in the mood to try and arouse her, because he'd never even managed to leave off her bottom before – and added: “...But I'm not crying my eyes out anymore and that's... an improvement.”

“A _big_ damn improvement.”, her fellow pyro agreed, lifting his hands off her to tend to washing himself with his own scented bodywash; Sam reflexively held out her hands to return his favor and wash his back, but he shook his head. “...Nah, you just rinse off and stand there lookin' amazing, mon ange, j'ai pas besoin de tes soins.” He left the 'I'm not the one that got hurt last night' unsaid but it was clear from his tone, and that made her sigh in mingled sadness and appreciation as she tilted her head back and just let the spray of the shower hit her face and upper body. She felt numb, devoid of energy – she wouldn't have showered, even, if it weren't for Gabriel pulling her through the simplest of routines such as eating and showering. How Dell was blind to the way Gabriel made her better was an utter mystery to her, especially at a moment like this. She didn't realize she'd said something to that effect out loud until Gabriel answered the sentiment, his tone somewhat upset: “...Dell's blind, and deaf, and _un idiot foutu,_ that's what he is. He may be right that we shouldn't have gone behind everyone's back, but if he thought barrin' us from seein' each other would've gone down any other way than this way, he's a fuckin' retard.”

“Oh, Gabriel, don't... don't. I admire and respect Dell, he is like a father to me. That's why I'm so... upset at him. I just expected him to _understand_ , I guess.”, Sam admitted, tilting her head down and wiping her hair out of her face a moment later as the shower pushed it in front of her eyes. “...Je te remercie pour me secourir la nuit passée, mon amour, mais je ne veux pas que tu lui parles comme ça, t'es mieux que ça.”

“Pour toi, j'm'améliore toujours.”, Gabriel admitted, walking up to her and handing her her towel before embracing her. She relished in his warmth and proximity for a little while, the part of her that felt sad getting comfort from the feeling of his arms wrapped loosely around her shoulders. Then, however, he let her go and stepped around her so he could look at her. “Donc, on fait quoi aujourd'hui? There's no battles today anyway so we could go to town-”, he offered, but she shook her head.

“No, not to town. If the others-”, she started, only for him to sigh and nod.

“Ah, yeah, j'ai pas en pensé. ...I could ask doc Hardass if I can borrow his car and we can drive to the city? Hardly anyone from either team goes there – we could go there, blend in the crowd... eat some ice cream, watch a movie, go shoppin'...” Sam nodded slowly, feeling her reservations crumble away in favor of the prospect of a nice relaxing afternoon with the man she loved. “Bien.”, Gabriel said, smiling down at her before pulling her towel gently over her wet hair, indicating that she should towel off, before heading to his own towel to follow his own advice, turning to look at her once or twice with a gentle look, which made sure that she was done quicker than he was, at which point she put on her underwear and her clothes before leaning against the door. “Oh, _no fair_...”, the taller pyro complained when she looked him over. “T'me fais rougir en me regardant, mon ange, j't'en prie, fais pas... it's bad enough that ya were lookin' so great earlier and my mind-”

“-wandered, huh?”, she guessed, smiling and rolling her eyes. Even if she wasn't exactly in the mood for making love to her boyfriend, it was somehow reassuring to know that he still responded to her as he always did. “...Well, I don't mind your thoughts getting all heated, mon amour, but-”

“J'sais.”, he quickly cut her off, putting a damp hand on her T-shirt and then quickly withdrawing it again as it left a few fingermarks on the light blue fabric. “...You look great even when ya wear an old T-shirt and shorts of mine, ma chérie, j'peux pas déchirer mes yeux de ta figure.”

“And _you_ look amazing in anything, Gabriel, but you know that.”, she reacted, rolling her eyes again when he winked at her. “Now come on, if we want to make it to town in time for ice cream _and_ a movie, we'll have to-” She meant to say 'we'll have to run red lights' but was interrupted by a loud ringing from Gabriel's cellphone. The RED pyro understandably looked annoyed.

“C'est quoi, ça?! Who the fuck's gonna call me _now_ ?! I'm supposed to be in the middle of a damn battle at the moment!! Oui?”, he asked somewhat harshly before blinking, his eyes wide and his expression turning to one of utter surprise in a heartbeat. “Ha-hang on, I'm puttin' ya on speaker. Sam, it's _Archie_ , of all people-”

“ _Yeah, sorry ta disturb ya, but I just wanted ta ask ya how ya been, considerin'. Ya stuff's still in my room, if ya want I'll bring it over ta RED side.”_

“Oh... w-well, Gabriel and I weren't... we didn't talk about what I'd do yet. I mean, I... I'd love to stay over here, with him, but that'll probably not be allowed.”

“ _Why not?”_ , the scout asked, and Sam sighed.

“I'm no longer an employee-”

“ _Ya ain't fiyah'd yet, Sam, sistah. Dell ain't shown up to breakfast this mornin'. Jane neither. Yaro said they were bunkin' togetha last night, which is probably tha best right now. Dell could get a heart attack from tha shock ya gave 'em – an' he won't mind CPR as much of the ol' iron-muncher, that much ya know – that much_ we all _know now. He's, uh, gone back to tha battlefield to fix the glitch in the respawn system, prob'ly together with Grant. ...Hey, uh, Sammy, ya gotta know... we hate what went down last night, sistah. Doc Steinheim figures it's Hardhat an' Helmet's own damn fault, 'cause they oughta been more lenient on you. The doc ain't on board with firin' ya, and he's gonna protest ya resignation if Dell decides to call the comp'ny. Me, Yaro, Arsène an' Tav', too. Ya're one of tha team now, Sammy, it ain't Dell's place ta decide othawise!”_

“Thanks for that...”, Sam said, feeling her eyes prickle, a sure sign that she'd cry if she got any more emotional; Gabriel noticed and spoke up as well.

“Arch', do ya think ya could keep Billy with ya this weekend? That way, Sammy an' me don't have to worry about him.”

“ _Heh, sure I can keep him with me. ...'Ey, Sam, Gabe, how's Grant takin' it? 's He just as angry as our Hardhat?”_

“Grant didn't even raise his fuckin' voice.”, Gabriel grumbled next to her, pulling his shirt over his head; once he'd managed that feat, he put one arm loosely around her waist and spoke on in a slightly less hostile tone: “That's what's so damn horrible about the entire situation, ya know? Sammy an' me, yeah, we made a fuckin' mistake, and yeah, we should've known better, but Grant didn't even blink. I mean, I get that Dell sees Sammy as his little girl – hell, she could've been his daughter if he hadn't been forty when he first became a dad – but he's got to fuckin' _know_ she _isn't his goddamn daughter!_ He's got no right to tell her she's confined to quarters! He was goddamn lucky I didn't punch his lights out.” He ran his free hand over his face for a second, groaning softly before adding in a sorrowful tone: “...I keep wishin' I _did_ punch him – then Grant maybe had a few choice words to say, but at least then _I_ 'd be in trouble and not _Sammy_. She doesn't fuckin' deserve this shit. Cette merde, c'est pas du tout correct.”

“ _Yeah, that's exactly what the othas are sayin', minus the swearin' an' the 'I wish I'd punched the asshole'. But glad we're on tha same page, Gabe, brotha. ...'Ey, uh, I gotta go, but I just wanted to ask, uh, what're you guys doin' today? A-an' maybe would'ya mind some company? I mean, I don't think ya in any mood ta go on some fancy-shmancy date now, right?”_ , the scout asked tentatively, and Sam found herself laughing softly, the sound a little more joyous than she felt.

“Archie, just because you're right, it doesn't mean that you can just invite yourself. ...But, well, Gabriel, what do you think?” Her lover shrugged, looking at her.

“Today's all about you, mon ange, so if you don't mind, then it's fine by me. J'dois me garder un peu plus, donc.”

“ _Awright! ...Uh, jus' so ya know, it ain't jus' me an' Billy then, but Yar, doc Steinheim an' Arsène. Tav said somethin' in freakin' Scottish an' then went back to his room, prob'ly enjoyin' the fact that Jane ain't in his room or somethin'-”_ , Archie rattled, and Sam quickly interrupted him.

“That's okay, I think I could appreciate an afternoon with friends and an evening with my partner. ...See you in, uh, ten minutes?” The response she got was preceded by a chuckle and a rowdy shout.

“ _Yo, peeps! Pick it up, Sammy said okay! ...Yeah, see ya outside in ten. Ya don't gotta worry about transportation, doc Steinheim said he's got tha key to Dell's car, seein' as he ain't usin' it today. Arsène is drivin' it.”_ The thought of a man of Arsène's refined looks and distinction sitting behind the wheel of Dell's dusty, battered pick-up truck brought a genuine smile of amusement to Sam's face, and her voice got a little sparkle of its usual warmth back as she spoke in reply to the scout.

“Well, that I'll have to see to believe. See you in a few minutes, Archie.” Gabriel ended the call as soon as she'd spoken, looking at her with an unusually tender gleam in his eyes, which was also evident from his words.

“Sam, mon ange, t'es sûre que tu veux passer un après-midi avec tes collègues?”

“T'es jaloux, mon amour, ou tu penses qu'ils volent mon temps?”, she asked with a soft smile, and he grinned, holding her close for a second as he answered.

“Ton temps est précieux, ma chérie. J'veux que tu l'partages seulement avec moi, donc si c'est d'la jalousie... ouais, j'suis bien jaloux. ...Now come on, or they'll think I seduced ya back into my bed.”

“Pff, yeah, like they'll look at me and think _that_.”, Sam said, motioning for herself. She didn't have a comb so her hair was slightly tousled from having towelled off, and Gabriel's shorts came to her mid-calf where they'd probably come well above his knees if he were to wear them. However, her lover shook his head and ushered her on.

“Pour moi, t'es la plus belle du monde, n'importe quoi, mon ange. And most of those guys may be married, or involved, but they agree. ...non, mais allons, ma Samantha – the sooner we go to them, the sooner we can all relax and have a nice time.” Sam nodded, unable to argue with her boyfriend when she looked forward to basking in the kindness and care of her friends now that she needed it more than ever before.

 

“...Sam, Gabriel, hold up fer a sec!” Gabriel turned around after breakfast on Saturday morning, his arm still around Sam's waist, to see Grant walk briskly up to them from the door to his workshop-and-bedroom. “Ah were meanin' tuh have a li'l talk with y'all yestehday, but yeh weren't in-”

“Oh, uh, yeah, we... Archie, Billy, doc Steinheim, Yaroslav an' Arsène asked if we wanted to go to the city, for drinks an' a movie, and we, uh, kinda stayed out a little later than we had intended.”

“Ah, ah see... well, uh, don't mean tuh pry, but how'd them guys take yer li'l fallin' out with Dell?”, the RED engineer asked, causing Sam to smile faintly – Gabriel could tell that her good mood of the day before had persisted and had even not been completely ruined by the mention of Dell, and for that he was thankful. As she answered, he let his fingertips idly move over the fabric of the shirt of his she wore.

“They must've told me twenty times that they'd protest my dismissal and that they think Dell overreacted. The further the night progressed and the more alcohol was involved, the louder they became in their assertions. Can you believe that _Yaroslav_ had to drive _Siegfried_ home in the end?”, she said, and Grant gave a soft chuckle.

“Well, ah wouldn't b'lieve it if'n it weren't yew tellin' me, S'mantha... But, uh, that ain't why ah wanted t'talk tuh yew. ...Ah were workin' on tha' respawn machine all day yestehday with Dell.”, he said, his tone indicating all that he hadn't voiced out loud: that he'd had a chance to speak to his BLU counterpart about what had happened and the impact it'd had on Sam. The RED pyro could feel his girlfriend tense, even through the fabric of the overlarge shirt, and he couldn't help but feel some of that tension transmit to him. The truth was that Sam still was deeply saddened and upset by what had happened, and that meant that he still felt like he had to keep her away from any and all stress. However, Sam's voice, when she spoke to voice her question what the man had said, was far from sad or even the least bit hesitant. Instead, she sounded _weary_ , as if she'd mentally prepared for the worst, and that made Gabriel feel even worse than her previous sadness. He could take anything as long as Sam remained strong and optimistic; but now, she sounded hopeless, and that made something _fierce and unforgiving_ rage in his heart, demanding Dell's blood flow for the injustice he'd done to the first and foremost woman in his life.

“What'd he have to say for himself? I hope ya told him he was fuckin' _lucky_ I didn't punch him into next year, _l'espèce de fils de garce foiré-_ ”

“Gabriel, calme-toi, mon amour. You... don't have to fight for me...”, Sam said softly, running her hand over his arm, loosening the tension that he hadn't even noticed had crept into his body and causing him to relax again with a soft huff. Just as quickly as the fierceness in his heart had risen, it died down again, just by her touch and her words. “...What did he say?”, she followed up, turning to Grant, and the engineer sighed, relaxing as well – Gabriel hadn't even seen his friend tense up when he did, ready to respond to any and all aggression he'd show. He shook his head softly, scratching through his unruly auburn hair.

“He said he weren't kiddin' when he said y'are off the team... but he did ask how yeh'd been an' he looked... sad... when ah told 'im Rudolf had t'give yeh some tranquilizers again. An' he looked kind 'f upset when ah said _Gabriel_ were the one t'go callin' fer the doc.”

“He looked upset. Pfeh. J'le tue. As soon as the respawn's back online, he'd better fuckin' _watch his back_.”, Gabriel said emphatically, feeling half ready to go over to the BLU side of the base and forget about the respawn system altogether; however, once again, Sam calmed him down by putting her hand on his arm.

“Gabriel, love, he _knows_ he should watch his back. Besides, I don't want you to go – w-with me off the team, someone's going to need to stick by his side to check for Pierre, and if that's Yaroslav, you'll get shot into a bloody mince.” He looked at his girlfriend to see tears run slowly down her cheeks and rage made place for something infinitely more tender and pained.

“Oh, non, n'pleures pas, mon ange... Don't cry...” He pulled her against himself, rubbing the thumb of the hand that wasn't holding her in place over her cheeks to wipe away the tears one by one before kissing the top of her head and then looking at Grant with a weary sigh of his own. “Ya see, Grant? Next time ya see Dell, tell him about _this_ . Tell him how Sammy's job means the fuckin' world to her and how _he took that away from her_ . Tell him about how Sam's the only thing holdin' me back from comin' over there and knocking the stuffing and the guts outta him. ...Tell him he _should_ feel sorry for makin' Sam's life _twice_ the mess she made his. An' tell him he doesn't have the fuckin' right to tell her anything ever again.” When Sam lifted her head, clearly intending to protest, he was the one to calm her for once: “...N't'inquiètes pas, mon ange, j'lui touche pas. But he deserves to feel like shit. Ya love that job, ya love your team like a set of seven brothers an' a surrogate father – Dell's a goddamn _moron_ for ignorin' that-” He meant to speak on but then was rudely interrupted by the ringing of Sam's cellphone, which Archie had given her so she could call Damien on it later that day. “...U-uh...”, the RED pyro stammered, causing Sam to sigh shakily and take a half-step back from him, still remaining in his hold but freeing herself up to speak to whoever it was that was calling her.

“S-sam. ...What? Archie, but- o-okay...” She pressed a few buttons and suddenly a plethora of sound came through the small speaker of her cellphone – the muffled sounds of someone shouting in the distance, doors opening and slamming, and Archie's soft voice.

“ _Look, jus'... whoever's with ya there, don't say nothin', okay? I... wired my cellphone to my headset 'cause ya gotta hear this, Sammy – an' you too, Dante. Keep ya mouths shut, okay, I don't wanna hear ya shoutin' ya head off in my earpiece.”_ Gabriel had a few choice words to say in response, but suddenly the shouts became louder, along with the sounds of a door closing, and the voice became clearer the more footsteps followed, indicating that Archie was walking towards the source of it. That source was evidently standing in the living room of the base.

“ _Ah don'' feel comf'table discussin' that with yew, ma'am, over the telephone- A-ah know yew ain't been down 'ere in months, an' there ain't no need fer- But she... she disobeyed orders- Whuh? Well, it were a team decision-”_

“ _Zhey vere_ not _a 'team decision', herr Conagher, zhey vere decided by you und herr Dillinger of RED – und herr Dillinger has never enforced zhose 'orders' as fiercely as you haff.”_ The interruption was clearly Siegfried, and Gabriel could _see_ Sam's heart leaping up at the man's voice. He defended her just as he'd promised, which made the man worthy of praise and a big damn thank-you note in Gabriel's view as well. The conversation, however, proceeded.

“ _Siegfried, yew keep yer nose outta this! ...M-ma'am, ah... yeah, but... but she... She an' th'RED pah-ro, Gabriel Dawntawn, are- Ah know yew know 'bout tha', ma'am, ah didn't say y'ain't up tuh speed with what we do, but... they kept us all outta sleep ev'ry other night an' me an' Grant felt like we had tuh intervene, so our teams'd git th'sleep we need. ...Y-yeah, so we asked 'em-”_

“ _You_ ordered _zem, laborer.”_ , another interruption followed, this time by Arsène, whose voice showed a hint of something dangerous, and this time Dell didn't snap at the other man, instead amending his statement.

“ _Y-yeah, so we ordered 'em tuh stay in their own rooms in th'week, tha' they oughta keep their... troublemakin'... fer th'weekends. Tha' were all we meant by it-”_

“ _Yeeeaaaah, an' the fact that ya think of Sam as tha kid ya ain't had when ya were twenty don't have_ nooooothin' _ta do with it, Hardhat...”_ , Archie responded, his voice sounding louder than the others' – Gabriel had to bite his lip, he found, to keep himself from speaking up in agreement and appreciation of the scout's interruption. Fortunately, just as he felt like he was fighting a losing battle, Dell spoke up again and shut him up.

“ _Arch', son, keep yer nose outta this, y'hear?! ...W-well, ah s'pose it ain't no lie, ma'am- Y-yeah, but- Ah, awrigh' then, ah caught 'em tuhgether las' Thursday night, can't have been th'firs' time neither, an' ah told Sam she were confined tuh quarters... ...y-yeah, at which point she showed me th'discourtesy'a- ...W-whut?_ Whah?! _...Y-y'ain't... Whuh? O-okay, puttin' yew on speaker...”_ , the engineer said, and Gabriel gave a soft exhale of relief when the man spoke those final few words. The conversation was one-sided, but now they'd hear what the Administrator was saying – since there was no one else in the world that Dell would call 'ma'am' almost fearfully. Indeed, a few seconds later, the woman's voice came through the phone as well, sounding muffled but still very understandable and clear.

“ _As I was saying, mister Conagher, the relationship between yourself and mister Doe is neither unknown to the company, nor is it a_ concern _of ours. What_ is _a concern of ours, however, is the fact that_ you _made a decision that was not yours to make. We were informed that you fired miss Tennant for her 'indiscretions' and her 'insubordination'...”_ , the woman said, the meaningful lilt in her tone indicating just how much value she attached to the way Dell had used those particular words to discuss what Sam had done. _“That act constitutes a violation of your contract with the company, mister Conagher. You are the appointed liaison between the company and the team, but you do not have the authorization to make that kind of decision. No matter how deep your personal involvement or how slighted you yourself feel. Not to mention the long search for an ideal pyrotechnician we've undertaken that led to miss Tennant's employment. You, mister Conagher, have made this situation into a fiasco, and normally that would mean immediate termination.”_

“ _W-whah? Y-yeh can't dismiss me fer... fer wha' S'mantha did!”_ , the engineer reacted, sounding mortified at the thought; the woman on the other end of his phone, however, didn't even pause before answering his statement flatly.

“ _We can, and we will, if you do not reconcile with miss Tennant. Find her – I hope, for your sake, mister Conagher, that she hasn't decided to disappear off company grounds yet – and talk to her. Tell her whatever lie you need to tell her on your behalf, but make sure that she is standing in that respawn room next Monday morning, or we'll add looking for a new BLU_ engineer _to our HR task list. Is that understood?”_

“ _B-but ma'am-”_ , Dell protested feebly, to which the woman reacted with sharper, more vicious emphasis.

“ _Is. That. Understood?”_

“ _...Y-yeah. L-loud an' clear, ma'am. Thank yeh kindly fer th'opportunity tuh set this straight, ma'am...”_ The call was evidently ended from the Administrator's side and silence fell for a while before someone over at BLU spoke up. Surprisingly enough, the voice was Tavish', the BLU demoman clearly not inebriated and even highly _attentive._

“ _...Dell, yoo need to think aboot this properly, man. There were loads of hurt feelings. Yoo said some raeght harsh stoof, the lass said some raeght harsh stoof...”_

“ _Herr Degroot, perhaps now ist not zhe time-”_ Siegfried started to protest, but he was interrupted by the least likely of men, even less likely than Tavish.

“ _Look, yeh bunch o' no-hopers... Oi think it's up to Dell to moike a decision about whot he loikes best, 'is job or 'is pride.”_ The sniper's tone made it clear that he found the problem a non-problem, and Gabriel had to bite his lip even harder in order to keep from speaking up his assent loudly. Sam's eyes, however, betrayed sadness mingled with utmost glee, and Gabriel's vindictive joy at the BLU engineer's expense tempered to a somewhat huffy glare at his cellphone. _“So, Dell, mate, whot's the verdict?”_

“ _Okay, git outta here...._ Git _, y'all! Ah'm not kiddin'!”_ , the engineer said loudly – his words didn't sound the least bit muffled even though they had been sounding like that all the time while he'd been talking on the telephone. The sounds of hasty footsteps sounded, some dying away almost instantly, and then a door opened and closed and Archie sighed.

“ _Yo, Sammy, Gabe, ya still there?”_

“Hell, son, y'weren't wrong tuh call-”, Grant said, getting interrupted by the BLU scout's groan.

“ _Dante, ya could'a_ said _ya engie was there, man! Uh, no 'ffence, mistah Dillingah, but ya ain't supposed ta know 'bout this just yet. Dell's gonna flip if ya know.”_

“None taken, y'only got S'mantha's best int'rests at mind, ah'm sure, son... an' don't worry, 's far as Dell's concerned, none'a this call ever took place. ...C'n ah jus' say...”, the engineer added a second later, giving Sam an apologetic look as she looked like she'd been about to speak up, “...tha' were some quick thinkin' an' handy work on yer behalf, son? Linkin' tha' there cellphone to yer earpiece...”

“ _Heh, that was nothin'. I mean, Dell sometimes said I got a good head for technological shit like this, so it's actually nice ta know he ain't lyin'. ...Anyway, Sammy, Gabe-”_

“Archie, thank you.”, Sam said – Gabriel turned to her again to see tears once again streaming down her face, though this time they weren't tears of sadness. Her voice was choked when she repeated: “T-thank you, Archie. I can't... can't thank you enough...” The scout seemed to realize just how affected she was by what she'd heard as well, since he spoke softly next.

“ _Hey, what's a friend for, huh, Sam? ...Dante, man, uh... give her a hug for me, would ya?”_

“T'dois pas le dire, Archie.”, Gabriel said, wrapping both arms around Sam and holding her loosely but close to him, feeling her press her face against his shoulder as her own shoulders shook. “...Mind if we hang up on ya?”

“ _I don't mind. Ya probably wanna celebrate now-”_

“Not like _that_ , p'tit connard!”, Gabriel said, though he grinned as he spoke, something that he evidenced with his addition: “...You have a nice afternoon too, an', uh, see ya soon maybe.”

“ _Yeah right, see ya, Dante. See ya soon, Sam. Don't behave.”_ The scout switched off the call – Gabriel would've done it, but he found his hands didn't want to leave off Sam's form, not even to move his fingers so he could press the 'disconnect' button. He only half heard Grant's quick and transparent excuse to escape the living room, focused as he was on how Sam held onto him in return.

However, a thought suddenly occurred to him, and he kissed the top of Sam's head again, causing her to look up, her eyes reddened from the flow of tears and a slight blush gracing her cheeks from the excitement she felt.

“Mon amour-”

“I know, ya feel excited, but... Sammy, I still think we need to sit an' think about what we're gonna do. Because something's _gotta_ give. I mean, we can't keep on annoying everyone on both our teams, but we also can't go back to not spendin' our nights together. That was _hell_. ...J'pense qu'on doit demander quelques changements...”

“Like what?”, Sam said, her tone displaying interest and causing Gabriel to shrug.

“I don't know. All I do know is that this can't keep on going on. J'ai t'donné mes vêtements à moi, j't'ai donné mon lit... I want us to share more than our weekends, Sammy, mon ange. Don't get me wrong, I kept hopin' ya wouldn't really get fired all along, but part of me was over the fuckin' moon with the thought that I could actually _live_ with ya now, in some way that wouldn't get both our teams whinin' again. Bunch of fuckin' crybabies... But, yeah, j'veux vivre avec toi, mon ange – j'veux plus te laisser partir chaque dimanche soir et j'veux plus jamais que tu me manques toute la semaine. I don't know how we could find a way to manage it without upsettin' RED and BLU, but there's got to be a way...”, he said finally, looking at her, feeling helpless and desperate, and she nodded, her eyes displaying the same range of emotions.

“...Let's talk, see what we come up with...”

 

“Go on in. Yew firs', Suhmantha.”, Grant said with a gesture at the door, and Sam nodded, suppressing one last yawn before heading towards the door. She and Gabriel had been talking throughout most of their Saturday, at first making a list of all the things they wanted which they'd then divided in priorities, from 'absolutely necessary' to 'let's not be ridiculous', and then they'd started looking into ways in which they could manage to respect both their own wishlist and the needs of their mutual teams. It had been a difficult balancing exercise – living together on the BLU side would mean damaging the peace she was about to make with Dell, while living together on the RED side wasn't an option as Grant had pointed out more than once. Gabriel had suggested that they relocate to the town, but she was wary of the stress and he'd admitted that he didn't want it to be strained. “...Sam, pardner?”, Grant asked quietly, causing the female pyro to catch on to the fact that she'd been daydreaming with her hand idly resting on the door handle, which in turn caused her to smile and shake her head.

“Sorry, I was... deep in thought. Okay, let's do this.”

“Yeah.”, Gabriel said, letting go of her hand, figuring that staying a step behind her would ease Dell a little. Grant had received the call from the engineer late on Saturday and he'd been uncharacteristically quiet as he came to notify Gabriel and Sam that they were both expected the next day in Dell's chambers. Now, as Sam stepped into the room, she could tell why.

“S'mantha... Gabriel...” Dell looked older all of a sudden – maybe because it was the first time Sam didn't see him smiling, causing his worry-wrinkles to look like chasms instead of creases. “Uh, have yerselves a seat. Grant, yew c'n sit over there. ...D'yeh mind if'n Jane sits in 'ere?”

“Not at all.”, Sam said gently, giving the soldier an aside glance. He looked a little older than he'd looked before as well, causing Sam to guess that they both had lost some measure of sleep over the night as well. “...Look, before you and Jane say what you need to say, Dell, there's something I never got the chance to say on Thursday night. I'm sorry for betraying your trust like that. I know you probably won't forgive me any time soon, and that's okay – I wouldn't expect you to let something that important go quickly – but I hope... I hope we can move on past this.”

“Ah... accept yer apology, Sam, li'l lady.”, Dell said, and Jane nodded stiffly.

“Apology accepted, Sam, but you are not off the hook yet!”, the soldier said, his voice showing marvellous restraint of his feelings – Sam was certain that he wanted to punch her, but something held him back. When the engineer spoke up again, it became clear what that 'something' was.

“...Sam, ah'm gon' be honest with yeh. Ah spoke outta turn. Ah were angry 'cause yeh weren't seein' how yeh damaged the team, but ah... nearly damaged the team even more 'n yew did. When ah said yew are off the team, ah... were angry. Angry an' wrong. Y'ain't off the team. 's A matter of fact, yeh were righ'. Y'were doin' great last week. Ah'm not sure if'n it were 'cause yew an' Gabriel were sneakin' around or 'cause yeh were doin' better not losin' sleep every other night, but ah'm willin' to accept we both got diff'rent opinions 'bout the reasons fer it an' just...” The engineer paused for a second, which caused Sam to look at him to see him hide his face away behind one of his calloused hands as he sighed shakily. “...Sam, li'l lady, ah... ah'll be honest with'chu, jus' like yeh've been nothin' but honest with th'rest'a the men. Ah'm still angry at yeh, somehow.”

“I know, and I understand that, Dell. I'm angry at myself as well, somehow.” Now, everyone else looked at her in varying degrees of surprise, which only fuelled her to continue: “I mean, you're a friend – no, more than a friend, Dell, you're like the man I wished my father had been when I needed him most. When I got angry last Thursday and blurted it out, I... I hated myself for that. I still hate myself for that. I don't have _any_ excuse for betraying you like that.”

“Naw, Sam, dahlin', don't yeh hate yerself.”, Grant said, patting her on the shoulder and causing her to smile. Dell removed his hand from in front of his face to reveal a couple of wet pathways across his cheeks, and a tear rolling down one of them.

“Sam, l-li'l lady, y'ain't got no idea how much it hurt comin' from yew. Ah mean, from anyone else, ah could'a taken it – ah ain't mad that yew blurted out that me an' the ol' blockhead-”

“ _Watch it,_ truckie!”, the soldier warned, though he reverted back to his stoic silence the next second, glowering at Sam and then at his feet when Gabriel glared back.

“-but ah'm mad that yew... hell, _ah don'' know_...”

“Dell, it hurt me as well – God, do you have any idea how much it _physically hurt_ to _see_ you enraged and irrational like that? Do you know how damaging it was to have you hold my wrist and order me to my room, away from Gabriel – to hear and see you _dismiss_ my love for him? I know that you may not think that me and Gabriel will last together, and I know that you have your opinion about our relationship and about the age difference and _everything_ , but _that cut deep wounds_ , Dell. ...Do you know how much I respected you before this? Do you know how much less I respected you after this?”, she said, and he nodded. She didn't notice the tears running over her own face until the engineer gave a soft, strangled noise and got up from his chair when she did to hug her tightly.

“Aw, _shit, S'mantha_ , y'ain't... y-yeh got no idea...” The engineer held her close like that, allowing her to cry and crying along with her, for a few seconds or perhaps minutes, after which he let go of her and wiped his eyes dry before moving back to his chair. “...Look, Suhmantha, ah'm gon' be honest with yeh. Ah'm still angry, sure, but ah... ah feel guilty more 'n angry now. Ah didn't think properly that night. All ah saw were yew _intentionally_ breakin' mah rules...”

“You're bein' only half honest, Dell.”, Gabriel suddenly said, causing everyone to turn to him – in the case of Jane and Dell, he understandably got glared at, while Grant gave him an exasperated look, but Sam looked at him in actual surprise. The RED pyro blushed softly as he added to his interruption, explaining why he'd felt the need to speak up in the first place: “If you wanna be honest, be _completely fuckin' honest_ , man – you're not angry because Sam broke that rule, you're angry because Sam broke your _heart_.”

“Dantan, if you don't button that smart, _lying_ mouth of yours-”, Jane started, but then Dell nodded and voiced his agreement in a firm, calm tone.

“Yeah. Ah were angry 'cause Sam broke mah heart. An' ah thought it were _intentional_.”

“For _Christ's sake_ , Dell, I love you like I love my father, I would never... _I would never!_ ”, Sam said vehemently, feeling a little more than overwhelmed before adding on: “I... have to admit that you broke my heart as well, denying to see the relationship that I have with Gabriel as meaningful and _important_ to me. ...I've had time to think as well, and-”

“Y-yew... what... what?”, the engineer stammered – remembering that Dell's job was on the line in case she didn't take his offer of reconciliation, Sam quickly shook her head and finished her statement.

“I'll stand in that respawn room on Monday morning, just as you'll expect of me. I'll fight to the best of my capacities on Monday, and on _every_ day. I won't hesitate to kill Gabriel in battle. One hundred percent commitment from the moment the first horn of the day sounds to the moment we lay our weapons down in the evening, meaning no fooling around in battle or turning up late after a lunch break like we did before. Any special assignment the company gives us is included in that as well. But things will change.”

“How so?”, Dell asked, his voice showing relief that she wasn't going to walk away – and, which meant much more to Sam, relief that she had shelved her anger towards him – while at the same time holding a wary note that indicated he was making a conscious effort not to outright snap at her though he was prepared to do so. However, one look at Gabriel, who nodded, got Sam to speak on.

“You had a lot of time to think, and so did I. Gabriel was wonderful for me these past few days – I had no clothes, no soap, no toothbrush, no bed, no _nothing_ . He offered to go get my stuff for me but when I said no, he gave me his own clothes. He gave me an old T-shirt and shorts and told me how beautiful I looked in those. He took me out to the city, for ice cream, dinner and a movie. He pulled me through my hurt and into accepting whatever would happen. He was there for me. We were planning on how to move on when we got Grant's call and his explanation about today – and we kept planning. I don't want to cause trouble for BLU or RED, and neither does Gabriel, but _we are done_ straining ourselves and our relationship for the sake of others. So I'm coming back to battle, but I will _not_ be returning to the BLU side of the base.”

“What?!”, Jane thundered, clearly unsure whether to be angry or shocked and deciding on both; Dell, on the other hand, looked more afraid than anything else.

“S-sam, how... yeh gotta return tuh yer room!”

“I'm _not_ returning to my room – and Grant, I'm very sorry, but Gabriel's leaving the RED side of the base, too-”

“Aw _hell_ , where are yew two goin' then?”, the RED engineer said: Sam meant to answer only to get cut off by Jane.

“Samantha Tennant, _explain yourself at once,_ private!”

“Souhaitez-vous tous être putain silencieux juste une seconde afin que Sam peut vous expliquer la solution que nous avons créé?! Pour l'amour de Dieu, il suffit d'écouter une seule fois dans vos vies foutus! Could ya maybe _shut the fuck up_ for _one minute_ so Sam can explain?!”, Gabriel snapped, adding the explanation in English for good measure, and instantly the three men fell quiet, looking mildly affronted but refraining from voicing their objections.

“Well, the solution was staring us in the face all the time. There's a sectioned-off area of the base that's neither RED side nor BLU side. It was meant to house guests or the administrative crew at first, but it was later turned into a separate medical and sanitary area for special cases.”

“Yeh mean... where yew two were on Thursday?”, Dell asked, and Sam nodded.

“Gabriel and I are going to ask permission of the Administrator-General to turn the medbay into a separate living quarters. That way, we'll still live on the base but together, and _without_ bothering any one from either RED or BLU.”

“Yeah, an' that way, we won't be distracted every minute of the damn day 'cause we're apart. Dell, no offense to your rule – I mean, ya had no choice when ya basically _demanded_ that we stopped screwin' around on weekdays – but c'était pas malin du tout. I mean, did ya expect anything else from it but that me an' Sammy were gonna break that rule somewhere down the line?” The silence that followed his words was poignant, but in the end, Dell sighed – he didn't say 'yes' or 'no', but that sigh meant that he admitted the merits of their solution, and that, to Sam, was more than enough.

“...Dell, Grant, to make this work, Gabriel and I can use your help. You're both greatly educated men, so if there's anyone that can help us transform a big medbay into a liveable apartment, it's you. Oh, and to make sure we don't bother either of you, because that medbay is placed right next to your bedrooms... maybe you can help us _soundproof_ the entire thing just to be safe...”, she said, blushing meekly and avoiding the men's eyes, though Gabriel's soft squeeze of her hand and his words did make her feel a little less ashamed for bringing up that aspect of her relationship.

“Me an' Sam promise, in return, to compensate you for your time. J'ai épargné beaucoup dans les années précédentes-”

“Gabriel, son, y'ain't gotta pay me none fer helpin' yew an' yer girlfriend. If'n th'Administrator gives 'er approval, then ah'm on board with it.”, Grant said, and finally Dell seemed to relent.

“...Awkay, fine, ah'm on board with it 's well if'n yeh git th'Administrator's approval. A-an' ah s'pose it's better 'n havin' the two'a yeh distracted half 'f the time.” He looked Sam over and added with a soft grin: “Don't mean ah'm one hundred percent okay with it, though-”

“Ne ment pas, Dell, toi et Sammy se sont complètement pardonné une de l'autre de nouveau. Tu la regardes comme si elle était ta propre fille? Eh bien, les cœurs des parents sont brisés par leurs enfants et pourtant ils ne cessent jamais à les aimer.” Sam laughed loudly at that, drawing some confused and more than a little wary looks from the three older men until she gave a free translation to them.

“Gabriel's right – Dell, you're like a father to me, and you said I'm like a daughter to you... and sometimes, parents get their hearts broken by their children, but they don't stop loving them, so... Gabriel doesn't believe that things aren't okay between us.”

“Well, ah suppose ah can't pretend yer sayin' 'sorry' ain't made things look better 'gain... so okay, let's see if'n we can't git things back tuh th'way they were before...” Dell gave her a small but warm smile that Sam gladly returned. It wasn't exactly the blind trust and the utter confidence there had been before, but that wouldn't be far behind.


	26. Light up the love inside

“…So, uh, me an’ Dell are gittin’ tuhgether later, with'chu an’ Sam?”, Grant asked softly, causing Gabriel to lift his gas mask.

“Uh, yeah.  We wanna get started as soon as we can with the floor plan, so we can get the materials an’ everything next weekend and start buildin’ after that.  Tav’ an’ Graeme have both agreed to help get the tiles off the walls and floor.  John  _offered_ to help with that but I said he wasn’t allowed to blow the place up, we still wanna keep the  _ceiling_ in-”

“An’ Jane never offered, ah’m guessin’.”, Grant supplied; when Gabriel nodded, he found that his team’s engineer’s sigh mirrored his own sentiments on the matter.  Though Dell had somewhat forgiven Samantha for her ‘disobedience’, the BLU soldier still treated her with an icy silence, especially when she’d left with Gabriel that Sunday night. “…Aw, give it some time, he’ll come 'round tuh it 'gain, especially since the rest'a BLU ain’t treatin’ him an’ Dell like they’re on display no more.”, the engineer said sagely, and Gabriel nodded, idly dousing the man’s dispenser with burning fuel and almost casually lighting Arsène, who had been cloaked and sitting behind it, on fire, sending the man running down the hallway screaming in pain.

“Hmph,  _I_ don’t give a damn about Jane and whether or not he forgives Sammy, but  _she_ ’s unhappy about the way he’s kept on treatin’ her so  _I_ ’m unhappy about it too.  …Ah well, Dell lui a pardonné, c'est déjà une amélioration…  Hey, uh, Grant, I didn’t really tell ya yet how happy I am that you’re helpin’ us on this, even if we surprised you-”

“Heck, yew an’ Sam surprised me awrigh’, but ah weren’t as surprised by yew an’ her wantin’ tuh live t'gether as ah were surprised by  _yew_ callin’ th'Administrator-Gen'ral, an’ not Sam.”  At those words, Gabriel couldn’t help but grin.  He’d made the suggestion more as a way to prove to Dell, beyond any doubt, that he was serious about him and Sam being together properly; in reality, he’d been more tense than ever as he made the call.  The Administrator-General had never been his biggest fan, and he was afraid that she’d outright deny them the permission to basically demolish and rebuild part of the base to accommodate their crossfaction relationship.  However, she’d let go of her reservations fairly quickly and had made only a few demands in return, demands that were very feasible and even somewhat interesting for Gabriel.

“…Did you know?”, he asked the engineer; when the man looked up, his eyes clearly displaying his confusion, he elaborated: “I mean, the Administrator-General asked me and Sam to do an interview on how we met on the battlefield and how we had to struggle with our teams to get our love recognized and accepted, and how we feel about having to fight every day.  Of course, the general public doesn’t know how the fights are rigged – or maybe they _do_ know but they enjoy the fantasy of fatal enemies the companies spin around it – so it’s half lies, half truth, but… but I mean, did you know there was a  _fan magazine_ about us and the other teams?”

“Heh, yeah – an’ yew oughta known, too.  Ah mean, y'know there’s  _videos_ 'bout our battles, tuhgether with 'extra features’.  Yew were asked t'do that one project thing with'cher Axtinguisher once.  Ah had th'same with mah Southern Hospitality.  Hell, when they r'placed tha’ one engineer’s hand with tha’ prosthetic-”

“ _Eugh_ , n'me fais pas rappeler ça…”, Gabriel said emphatically.  “I had nightmares about you sawin’ off your right hand and stranglin’ me with a Gunslinger for… uh, for one day, but the point stands.”, he had to amend, causing the engineer to chuckle and shake his head.

“Gabe, son, y'ain’t squeamish none, an’ yeh ain’t scared'a me, yew know ah’m not th'kind'f man they portray me tuh be on them videos.”

“Oui, t'es qu'un gros nounours – you’re a great big teddy bear, Grant.”, the RED pyro admitted, slipping his gas mask on and adding: “Hmmm khmmnnn thh phnnnth Shmmmm nnnvh.”

“Awrighty, pardner, but don’t yeh git killed again, or Theo’s gon’ think he’s got  _special rights_ tuh killin’ yeh.”, Grant answered, snorting when Gabriel made a somewhat rude but very affectionate hand gesture; the pyro waved at him before ducking around the corner, fully focused on the task at hand again.  His orders had been to keep Grant safe while the rest of the men pushed for the next point – John had figured that the BLU team could get the idea that their defenses were weak, and he hadn’t been mistaken.  But after that, he was free to either stay with the engineer or join the others in their push… or option number three, he mused with a sparse grin, which was to try and test the BLU defenses in turn.  He knew Pierre was doing so, but mused that he could maybe team up with the Frenchman for once to get Dell’s sentry and dispenser reduced to scrap metal once again.  And, he thought, Sam would be there – he hadn’t seen her on the battlefield yet, which meant she either had gotten ordered to stick with her team’s engineer to keep him safe, or she did so out of her own accord.

“…Gabriel, 'old up…”, a soft-spoken voice issued from behind him, causing him to halt and turn around to see Pierre appear from the shadowy corner he’d just passed in a puff of pinkish smoke.  “Dell ees guardink 'is sentry carefully today, mon ami, and 'e’s got your leetle firefly by 'is side.”

“Hmmm, hhm khnnnnvh Shmmmm hhshh vhhmth hmmm… vhnnth mmmh thhh thhhphmmm phmmkh hmmm shmrrrphrrrssh thmmm?”

“Ah, good idée, mon ami!  Donc, nous les surprenons par les attaquer de deux côtés au même moment?”, the spy asked, and Gabriel chuckled, the sound warped by his gas mask.  He doused Pierre in gasoline and was somewhat satisfied by the fact that it ignited the admittedly great disguise, revealing that he’d in fact been talking to Arsène instead of his own team’s spy, a fact that he’d already known because Pierre never spoke French during battles except for 'mon ami’ or single words like 'bon’, 'bien’ or 'alors’.  “M-merde, comment-”, the BLU spy meant to ask only to get Gabriel’s Axtinguisher planted squarely in his back, ending his sentence and his life in a yelp.

“Mrrrth, khnnnnhhrrth…”, the pyro muttered, shaking his head.  Arsène had known he would come this way and he’d prepared accordingly.  Of course, now that he’d been wise to it, the man would warn Dell and Sam that he was on his way if he respawned in time.

Those last five words gave Gabriel an idea, and he chuckled softly, quickly heading back towards his own team’s side of the battlefield and then slowly hiking up a small path that only a few people knew about.  It led him to a spot that Chris and Theo sometimes used which overlooked the battlefield but lay out of sight of others that took to high ground, the latter explaining why the snipers preferred it. From there, he shot a flare over to the other side of the battlefield, which was answered in a second’s notice by a grenade going off in mid-air, indicating that Graeme had seen his signal and was coming for him.  As soon as he was down, he saw the Scotsman run up to him, grinning broadly.

“Yoo ready to take a wee risk, then, lad?”, he asked, and Gabriel nodded.

“Thmm hmm khnnnvh vhrrrr Thmmm hhnnth Shmm hrrrrr?”

“The tinkerer an’ his pocket pae-ro?  Aye, ah knoow.  Dug in deep.”, the other man admitted, though he took out his grenade launcher nonetheless and loaded it up again.  Gabriel checked his flamethrower and put a new flare in his Detonator as well as he answered the demoman’s statement.

“Thmm vhnnnth phhmm phrrrr hmmmnnn…”

“Aye,  _that’s_ the spirit, Gae-brial!  …Oh, wait, think we’ll be a parteh'o three.”, he added when Pierre came running up to them, looking a little upset.

“I saw your signal, Gabriel, mon ami, and I came to 'ear what your plan ees.”  Lifting his gas mask off his face and detailing how he intended to proceed, Gabriel found to his utmost satisfaction that the two men gave him surprised but clearly agreeing looks and ran off in the directions he’d pointed out, leaving him to run back the way he’d come.  Arsène probably would have respawned by then and warned Dell and Sam, and it would be very rude of him to keep his girlfriend waiting for him, he mused with a lopsided grin as he walked leisurely down the hallway and in sight of the engineer and the pyro, taking care to stay out of sight of the sentry while showing his face to the both of them.

“Ah,  _'ere_ he is – Dante, pardner, y'ain’t gonna win – mah sentry’s fully equipped an’ Sam’s flamethrower’s full thanks tuh mah dispenser, y'ain’t got no chance.”

“I’m not here for you, Dell, I’m here for Sam.  Mon ange, c'mon over,  _play_ a bit.  I’ve got somethin’ for ya, something that’ll get your blood flowing.”  Patting his Axtinguisher, he kept his hand close to his Detonator on the other side, ready to fire and start the plan. However, the next second, Sam kicked off the plan instead when she took a step back.  Pierre, who had cloaked and was standing behind the BLU engineer and pyro, had his knife sunk in her back, her dying body disappearing without a sound while he already took her form. Dell, who had been glaring at Gabriel because of his deliberately ambiguous words, didn’t notice at all that he was unprotected by Sam.

“Dante, yeh’d best be gittin’ away now-”, the Texan started, gritting his teeth when suddenly he looked to the side, where Graeme stood, firing his sticky bombs at the base of the dispenser from the cover of the corner.  At the same time, Pierre’s sapper had attached itself to the sentry gun’s outer casing which caused it to start to beep and smoke to rise from it.  From there, events proceeded exactly as Gabriel had planned: Dell turned to the spy and then staggered from the force of the explosion as Graeme detonated his stickies and demolished the dispenser, which gave Pierre the time to duck away into the shadows again and Gabriel the chance to run forward, his Backburner making short work of the stocky engineer before he could even turn around to tend to his sentry again.  After that, Gabriel just had to wait for the sapper to do its work before turning to the other men.

“Nice work, you guys.  That was  _satisfyin’_!”

“Bien, don’t sell yourself short, mon ami, dat was a very good plan you 'atched.  Now, weel we advance?”, the spy asked, cleaning his knife somewhat businesslike on a handkerchief; Gabriel chuckled and poured the gasoline from Sam’s flamethrower into his own.

“It’d be a shame if we forced this opening for nothing, right?  C'mon, let’s go win a round!”

 

“…Look…”, Sam said, feeling just about  _done_ with the man on the other end of the conversation she was having, “…I have called  _three times_ already to ask whether your company has laminate floors, and each of those three times, I got evasive answers.  If you cannot give me a definitive 'yes’ or 'no’ answer, I am taking my custom elsewhere, damn it!”

“ _B-but ma'am, please, I don’t know, I’m just a temp-”_ , came the somewhat horrified reply, causing her to react a little more brusquely than expected.

“Then  _give me the store manager_! I’ll discuss this with him or her –  _they_ ought to know what they’re selling, right?”  The first man sounded on the verge of tears as he promised to connect her through to the store manager, which satisfied Sam on a base level of her tired, slightly annoyed psyche.  Then, however, she realized she was being vindictive and she sighed, drawing Dell’s attention.  Before he could speak, however, the call was transferred and the store manager’s voice, soft and soothing, met her.

“ _Yes, this is the store manager, mister Lerner.”_

“Mister Lerner, I hope you can tell me whether your store sells laminate floors.”, Sam said, letting some of her previous anger go since the man genuinely sounded like he wanted to help her when he said that he’d look it up.  She heard him type something quickly and then heard him print something out, after which he replied to her question.

“ _Sorry for the wait, miss… we normally don’t stock laminate floors, but we do have suppliers that sell 'em.  And since my reception worker told me that you have called three times already with that question, I’ll gladly make sure you can place your order with us today and send you a catalogue and order form via e-mail, if you’d like.”_

“Oh, thank you, mister Lerner!  Hold a second…”, Sam said, pressing her mobile phone to her shoulder as she turned to Dell, who sat at his desk rifling through his blueprints for something.  “Dell, could I use your computer for a bit later?”

“Well, yeah, ’s long as yeh shut 'er off when yeh’re done.  An’ ’s long as yeh remember that ah’m goin’ tuh git a visitor later-”

“I’ll be out of your hair long before Jane shows up, Dell.  I  _know_ he doesn’t much like me after what I did and I… can understand that. No need to be stressed.”, she said before tending to her call again.  “Mister Lerner?  Thank you for being patient with me.  I’ll give you my e-mail address…”  She spelled out her name to him patiently, and once the man had repeated her e-mail address back to her flawlessly, she smiled again.  “Completely correct.  I’ll be looking forward to your e-mail then.”

“ _And I to your reply, miss Tennant.  Have a good evening.”_

“Thanks, you too!”, Sam said, giving Dell a wink as she put her cellphone back into her pocket.  “…I’m sorry I lost my patience there. Bloody temps never know  _anything_ about _anything_ …”

“Well, 'least now yeh’re helped, huh?”, the engineer said, prompting Sam to nod and sigh, stretching a little.  She’d tensed up before when she’d been connected to the second of the three ignorant store clerks, and that tension was only now making her shoulders ache slightly.

“…Yeah, well, if only it hadn’t taken  _half an hour_ for them to connect me to their manager.  I practically had to  _plead_ to be helped, how is that 'customer service’?  …But let’s not focus on how horrible it went before they finally managed to get me helped. I’ll quickly check my e-mail, print out the catalogue and then… uh…”

“Then what?”, Dell asked tentatively, his tone just as patient and calm as the store manager’s had been, but now Sam knew the logical error was with her and no one else.  She needed Dell’s pc to place the order, but she needed Gabriel’s opinion about the materials.

“…Oh damn… either I place the order without consulting Gabriel, or I can’t place the order today – and I don’t want to bother you three days in a row.”, she admitted, and the engineer patted her on the shoulder.

“Sam, pardner, ah’m not bothered by yeh, not at all, but ah git what yeh mean, an’ that’s mighty grand'a yew.  Ah know y'want nothin’ more 'n tuh git'cher plans with Dante started, but yeh aren’t so hyped up that y'ain’t care 'bout nothin’ an’ no one else.”  He nudged his head at his computer, adding with a grin: “Enough talkin’ now, let’s git'chu checkin’ yer e-mail.  …How long’s it been since yeh checked yer e-mail?”, he asked, and she shrugged.

“…I… last checked my e-mail the evening of… well, you know.” Swallowing the lump that still rose in her throat at the thought of Michael’s suicide, she added airily: “…So about six, seven months?”

“Holy sheeyit, Sam, y'ain’t been online in seven months?”, the engineer said, sounding utterly baffled, something which managed to transfer to Sam somewhat as well.  She blushed as she nodded.

“Yeah, I… kind of had some personal issues.  I mean, it’s not like my friends don’t know what happened, it was all over the bloody newspapers back at home… so I’ll maybe have a couple of new messages but never many…”  Dell’s computer had started up by that time, so rather than speak further, she took a seat in front of the screen and quickly logged in to her e-mail client.  However, contrary to her expectations, her inbox had  _exploded_ in her absence, so much so that she swore emphatically.  “ _Holy fuck_ , I have  _three hundred_ new e-mails?!  Who even  _sent me_ ….?!” She quickly scrolled down to the first few e-mails she’d received, which were a couple of jokes from friends, but from then on the tone became concerned and shocked.  “…Holy shit…”, she whispered again when she read some of the e-mails she’d gotten after the news of the fire had become national.  She read on quickly, having to bite her lip to keep from tearing up.  Half of the e-mails were from one ex-colleague that was being vindictive, complete with name-calling and telling her that 'she’d gotten her just desserts’; some of the e-mails she’d gotten from members of her former team were more compassionate, but not enough to fully soften the spite in the dozen or so e-mails that made her feel like crap.  In the end, when Dell redirected her to the top of the pile, where the e-mail about the laminate floors was waiting for her attention, she felt grateful for it.

“…Maybe y'oughta do the world a favor, Sam, an’  _delete_ all'f yer e-mail 'tween that day an’ now without readin’ it.”, the engineer said, shaking his head softly at the screen.  Then, with a soft smile, he winked at her and added: “…Maybe y'oughta invest in a computer'a yer own, too – ah mean, tha’ might come in handy when yeh’re livin’ in there with Gabriel.”

“Heh, well, I have to admit that I did miss my computer a lot…”, Sam said, blushing softly at the thought.  “…I mean, I used to love playing games in my spare time, and it feels like forever since I played Black Fortress 2 or Dungeons of Tahlessa…”

“Don’t know either'a them, but they sound like they’re fun.”, Dell admitted before sighing and shaking his head with a grin.  “Awrigh’ – why don’t y'order yerself a nice an’ powerful laptop?”

“…Because that feels wasteful?”, she said tentatively, shaking her head as the engineer chuckled.  “Yes, well, I’ve been raised by a very, uh,  _dominant_ mother that was an accountant, she kept telling us to think hard about every penny we spent.  If it’s not absolutely necessary-”

“Aw, Sam, li'l lady, y'only git tuh live once.  What good’s all tha’ money gon’ do yeh when yeh’re old an’ gray?  Live  _now_.”, Dell said, patting her on the shoulder and even giving her a half-hug as he scrolled up to another, even more expensive laptop.  “…This one.  ’s even more powerful than mah computer!  Think 'f all the games yeh kin play on it, or all the music yeh kin download an’ play…”

“Oh, I  _am_ thinking about those…  But I can’t…”  However much she could hear her mother’s voice in her head, not angry but her regular neutral authorative tone of voice, there was another voice that grew louder and louder in her mind and that got her to nod firmly and click on to the order form.

“There y'go, Sammy… ain’t no use havin’ all that money saved up if'n y'ain’t usin’ it.”

“You’re right.  I mean, just… just think of my brother,  _he_ didn’t have any chance to enjoy _anything_ he worked for.  He wouldn’t want me to listen to my mum’s little voice in my head, not anymore, not after all she’s put me through…”, Sam admitted, quickly clicking and then inputting her bank card details for the payment before printing the order confirmation for safe-keeping.  “…Okay, uh, Dell, I know you’re probably already late to join Jane, but could I still… stick around for two more minutes?  I’m calling Gabriel and doing that laminate floor order over the phone, then I won’t have to come interrupt your work again tomorrow-”

“Heh, y'say that now, li'l lady, but t'morrah yeh’re gon’ be here again anyway fer orderin’ cement or more drywall or wood fer yer finishin’…”

“Oh shit,  _wallpaper!_ ”, Sam said emphatically.  She had ordered all of the supplies they’d need save for wallpaper.  Then, however, she snorted and shrugged. “I’ll just tell the guy from the floor store to order twenty rolls of floorpaper to match the floorboards we order, he sounded competent enough.  …I-is it okay if I quickly call Gabriel?”, she asked, already dialling her boyfriend’s number even before Dell nodded, though she only then pressed the dial button.  “…Gabriel, mon amour, c'est moi… yes, I’ve finally gotten an answer from the floor store, they sent me a catalogue and an order form.  Which colour would you like?”

“ _Brown?”_ , he said tentatively, causing her to chuckle.

“…Yes, they’re all wood finish, so they’re all  _brown –_  but what shade of brown?  Dark, light…”

“ _Comme tes cheveux, mon ange, j'aime bien ses couleur…”_

“Gabriel, are you being serious or are you just-”

“ _I’m bein’ serious_ and  _I’m just sweet-talkin’ ya, hun, ya know I can’t resist makin’ you blush. …Am I on speakerphone and is Dell hearin’ me?”_ , he suddenly asked, and Sam guessed his intentions.

“Gabriel, don’t you start talking dirty to me right now, Dell can  _hear_ you even if you’re not on speakerphone.  I’ll order the chestnut finish, that looks kind of like my hair.  Oh, yeah, and the wallpaper-”

“ _J'l'ai arrangé pour toi, mon ange.  …Can’t blame you for forgettin’ I’d take care of the wallpaper, though.  I’ve been runnin’ behind myself all fuckin’ day as well.  Bien, donc, see ya tonight in our future room?”_

“…Mmhmm…”, she admitted before he ended the call, at which point she turned to Dell.  “…I’ll quickly fill this in and mail it back to the man, so he can get the floorboards ordered.  …Okay, chestnut finish… uh, I’m guessing six hundred and fifty square feet should do it… Invoice to Gabriel Dantan and Samantha Tennant at… damn, what’s the address of the base?”

“15b Arcadia Road in Lower Jacksonville, li'l lady.”, Dell supplied, taking the paper from her hands and scanning it in quickly, after which she e-mailed it back to the shop and then switched off her mail with a satisfied sigh.

“Thank you, Dell.  …now all that’s left is waiting for the weekend.”, she admitted, causing the engineer to grin at her good-naturedly.

“Y'ain’t gonna be waitin’ fer the weekend in 'ere, are yeh?”  It was only then, when he spoke, that she remembered that the engineer had a previous engagement and she instantly got up off the man’s desk chair.

“Oh bloody hell, I completely forgot!  You go get Jane, I’ll just…  _agh,_ how do you  _shut this thing down_ …” Her sudden haste caused by not wanting to bother the engineer any longer than she had to caused her to fumble with the computer’s controls, so much so that Dell grabbed her hands and pushed them away softly before reaching for the shut-down button on his keyboard. “…I’m sorry, Dell, dear…”

“Heh, ’s awright, li'l lady.  Now, yew go tuh Gabriel, an’ the two'a yeh  _behave_. Ah’ll pretend ah didn’t hear 'im ask whether y'had 'im on speakerphone-”

“-and I’ll pretend you didn’t just tell me to behave when we both know Jane isn’t paying you a visit to just play cards and drink coffee.”, Sam said, causing the Texan, tanned as he was, to still darken a shade or three around the cheeks as he ushered her outside.  Chuckling, Sam walked to the locked door at the end of the hallway, wondering whether Dell and Jane would actually just drink coffee and play cards once or twice before focusing on more important thoughts, such as how great their new rooms would look once they were done.

 

“Okay, I think that’s the last of it…”, Gabriel said, wiping his brow ostentatiously, without any regard for the way he smudged himself even more with dust and muck, before admiring the work he, Sam and the two demomen had gotten done in one afternoon.  The medbay had been emptied of all equipment first, the machines divided equally across both teams, and then they’d tackled the tiles.  Graeme had come up with the marvellous solution to dissolve the tiling glue that held the tiles to the walls and floor with solvent instead of starting to chip away at the tiles and cutting into the walls below, which would mean extra work later to even the walls and floor again.

“Are yoo shure, Gae-brial?  Think ah’m still seein’ a wee bit oop there-”, Tavish started, his tone of voice showing that he was teasing, but Graeme was clearly not in the mood for light, playful banter.  He lifted the sledgehammer he’d found in a storage shed over his shoulder and glowered at his fellow demoman.

“Ach, Tavish, yoo’re seein’ stoof tha’s nae there!  …Gabriel, ’s allraeth, yoo can have Grant

come over an’ start with the walls and floors tomorreh.”

“…Want me to go get him already?”, Sam offered, plucking the sledgehammer from Graeme’s hands and putting it in the empty wheelbarrow they’d borrowed from one of the utility sheds.  It were moments like that where Gabriel appreciated his girlfriend all the more, because she knew exactly how to get even the somewhat boorish Scotsmen of their teams to not even protest when she took control of a situation to make sure they didn’t cause anyone bodily harm or tore down a building when there was no need for it.  “Graeme, Tavish, we owe you for your help – without you two, it would’ve taken us days to manage what we did in one afternoon.  But right now, the part where we  _demolish_ stuff is over and done, so unless you want to get caked in quick-dry cement from  your eyebrows to your toes-”

“Right, lass, we got the cloo…”, Tavish said, grinning as he pulled his fellow demoman along, speaking excitedly about what Gabriel knew to be a bottle of their national treasure; he, in turn, pulled Sam close again and kissed his fellow pyro on the top of her hair.

“…T'es belle même quand t'as de la poussière sur ton corps entier. J'pense que t'es même plus belle que hier, comment est-ce que tu l'fais?”

“Oh, Gabriel, stop trying to flatter your way into my arms, how many times do I have to tell you you can’t  _not_ be in my arms?”, she answered, though she didn’t step away from him and instead leaned into him a little more, looking the room over just like he was doing.  “…I can’t wait, mon amour.  I wish it was already next week, when we start the wallpapering and laying those floorboards…”

“Don’t forget painting the ceiling, putting up the light fixtures, putting the wood finishings up… making a bed…”, he added with a soft smile, which Sam mirrored in an instant.

“I thought we were going to  _order_ a bed, Gabriel… were you planning something without telling me?”

“Oh, no, it’s just… Grant suggested that it wouldn’t be too hard for me to actually make a bedframe myself, all I’d need is some more timber and a little help from someone that actually  _knows_ how to work with wood.  He’s suggested Radovan, and I’ve gotta say I wouldn’t mind sacrificin’ a couple of hours every day on workin’ with the Gentle Soviet Giant if I get to make us a fuckin’  _handmade bed_. Imagine donc combien ce sera merveilleux de se réveiller dans un lit que j'ai fait avec mes propres mains! Sans oublier que ça va être la première fois que je  _crée_  quelque chose avec ces mains au lieu de  _mettre quelque chose au feu_  avec eux…”, he added softly in the end, looking carefully at Sam’s reaction to his words; true to her incredible understanding, she looked up right on cue and gave him a heart-warming smile.

“Those hands of yours will be  _plenty_ capable of creating.  …Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask, how… your medical exam, when’s it scheduled?”

“Oh shit, yeah, you’re right, doc Hayakawa called for that yesterday while ya were in the shower.  I’m due at HQ for the physical exam and the in-depth psych review on Thursday, and you’re coming along. We’re staying at a hotel in town, too, because on  _Friday_ we’re givin’ interviews and havin’ a photo session because that was one of the conditions for us to be able to rebuild this room.  It’s for the fan magazine, which we apparently have-”

“And the bonus is us living in a combined room that we’re funding ourselves?  …Somehow, I think we’ve gotten the short end of the deal.”, Sam said, though she let go of her reservations again instantly in favor of pulling his head down so she was able to kiss him again, at length: automatically, Gabriel pulled her gently against him, her body radiating heat even through the dusty long-sleeved shirt she was wearing.  No matter how tired he’d felt before and how sticky, she managed to make him feel fresh and rejuvenated just by the contact of her lips and the eagerness with which she held him close in turn.  Suddenly he, too, felt anxiously impatient for their room to be finished.  However, before going to the engineer just yet, she first seemed to want to prolong their moment of peace and quiet while talking about the events of the next week.  “…So, what’s the story we’ll need to stick by?”

“Oh, nothing out of the ordinary – we met on the battlefield, fell in love, started seeing each other in clandestine in between battles and in the night, resent killing each other but have to because our teams keep us well apart and because 'you’re the enemy’… but we’re ready to defy our teams and make a break for it together, we just haven’t planned it all out yet.”  Gabriel somehow still mustered the energy to roll his eyes, he found, in between his explanation.  “…It’s not completely lies, because we  _did_ meet on the battlefield, we  _did_ fall in love, we  _did_ meet in secret between battles and after hours… our teams  _did_ keep us apart…”

“Oh, Gabriel, all that matters now is that they  _don’t_ keep us apart anymore, mon amour.  …Okay, so we need to stick with the story that our teams are full-time enemies.  No problem.”, she said, stretching and showing off the curves her current choice of wardrobe hid so well, making Gabriel yearn all the more for the rooms to be ready and furnished so he could finally,  _finally_ have nothing to worry about when making love to this fantastic, perfect woman that had flown into his life and perched in his heart.

“…Hey, so we get Grant now and then shower up?”, he suggested, and Sam nodded, clearly understanding his train of thoughts if her gentle but very unsubtle squeeze of his body against hers was anything to go by.

“Get our Georgian thinker thinking about how to soundproof these future rooms of ours, and get  _us_ properly ready for the rest of our day… mmhmm, I am all for that!”, she admitted, pulling him along to the RED side of the base, where Graeme was already talking to Grant in the hallway.  The demoman and the engineer both looked up as Gabriel and Sam approached.

“Ah, there yoo are!  Took yeh long, lass, coold yeh nae keep off 'im?”, the demoman asked, which caused Sam to snort next to him, Gabriel found with utmost satisfaction, and fix the Scotsman with a somewhat disapproving look.

“He’s my  _boyfriend_ and we’ve basically spent our time last week ordering supplies, thinking up plans with Grant and Dell and you and Tavish, doing our regular chores and explaining to the rest of our teams what’ll change and what  _won’t_  – so yes, I’m sorry to say that  _after a week of being dead tired whenever we got to be alone, finally,_ I can’t keep my hands off my boyfriend.  And I’m  _not planning on resisting the urge._ ” Her tone, however, became light and pleasant again as she turned to Grant.  “…The rooms are ready for you, the floor’s all ready to be levelled and once you’ve found a good soundproofing material-”

“Ah awready got one, ’s the easiest one yet… an’ it ain’t gon’ cost yeh an arm an’ a leg.  Shredded paper.”, he elaborated, producing what looked like a miniature sheet of drywall from behind him, handing it to Gabriel.  Expecting it to be heavy, the RED pyro grabbed hold of it with both hands, only to find that it was very light.  “…It’s kind'f like paper mache-”

“Papier-mâché?”, Gabriel said, sounding just as nonplussed as he felt.  “…You mean, the stuff they teach to kids to make masks on a balloon?  Pfeh, I never would’ve thought of that.”

“Me neither, pardner, but ah found this 'ere recipe on a website.  All y'all need is a lot 'f used paper, a lot'f wallpaper glue, both'a which come cheap, an’ a day’s wait as it dries.  Ah were thinkin'a jus’ latherin’ it on the wall an’ then placin’ some drywall against it at first, but then ah saw this an’ ah figured we kin do it this way ’s well.  Ah built a li'l dryin’ rack that ah put in th'respawn room that’s able tuh dry 'bout fifty'a these at a time.  Yeh press the paper in tha’ there mold, pour the glue over it, an’ let 'er dry fer 'bout six hours.  Then, yeh kin press 'em outta the rack again an’ start over.  Ah’ve got 'bout enough tuh do half'a yer room tuhday.  Oh, an’ did ah mention ’s also easy fer wallpaperin’ over? Ah’ve used mah belt-sander on one side, they’re all smooth.  Y'ain’t gotta double- or triple-coat sealer an’ tape an’ whate'er else all over 'em.  Jus’ a li'l plaster, maybe, tuh give y'a completely smooth surface, but next week, yeh’ll have completely wallpapered an’ soundproof walls, ah kin guarantee it!”, the engineer said, causing Sam to grin and Gabriel to nod in clear approval of his team mate’s plan.

“Grant, t'es un merveille tout seul… uh, would ya mind me an’ Sammy  _not_ being present to help?  I… if I breathe in any more dust and chemicals, I think I’ll have a seizure.  I’m gettin’ a shower – and just to be safe, Sam’s comin’ with me.  In case my heart stops from all the chemical inhalation and I need CPR.”, he said with a somewhat self-satisfied grin, causing Grant to softly groan.

“Ain’t no use tellin’ the two'a yeh t'keep off'a each other, ah’m guessin’, but fer th'love'a Gawd, try an’ keep yerselves from disturbin’ the peace an’ quiet'a the rest'a the men 'ere…”

“Oh, Grant, like we’d misbehave just when everything’s going so well…”, Sam answered in Gabriel’s stead, though her eyes gleamed mischievously as she walked along to Gabriel’s room so they could pick up their shower supplies.  All in all, Gabriel mused as he felt his blood positively  _foam_ in his veins, it wasn’t like they didn’t  _try_ and not upset the men he fought by, they just had a lousy success rate.

 

“Alright, let’s see what you guys have got!”, Sam said with a generous smile. It was already well past ten, and the poker game she and Gabriel had eagerly joined had already gone a full round before ending up at the present time: she’d dealt and as such she was the one to call out the showdown.  Next to her, Gabriel grinned broadly, clearly feeling in a winning mood even though he’d only won one hand out of the seven that had passed; she’d won four of them, and John and Grant had each won one hand as well, the spies and Graeme being the less fortunate of the evening.  To her other side, Grant chuckled and laid his cards out.

“Three 'f a kind, all jacks.”  The others smiled – Arsène had folded in the first round, Pierre following his lead with a look of desperation, and John had hung on until the third round before realizing that he would never manage to even get a pair and folding out as well.

“Ach, I got a full 'ouse with queens an’ tens-”, Graeme said, and Gabriel shook his head.

“You can all pack up an’ go home, I’ve got a  _royal fuckin’ flush_! Read 'em an’ bawl, mes amis…”

“Ah, yes, that puts paid my pocket aces as well.”, Sam said with a shrug, gathering the cards and cutting them before handing them to Grant to deal so she could sip her glass of vanilla gin again.

“…Lass, it’s almost like yeh’re distracted…”, Graeme said, surprising her mid-sip and causing her to put her glass back onto the table hastily.

“Oh, how so?  I can assure you I’m completely focused on the game and the pleasant company, Graeme, really.  …And no, Gabriel is  _not_ distracting me either, Grant, we can think of something other than our needs.”, she added when the RED engineer meant to speak up.  Grant quickly shook his head and spoke in a soft, subdued tone as he dealt them their cards.

“Ah weren’t thinkin’ that, Sam, pardner, ah were jus’ gonna say that maybe yeh’re a li'l unfocused 'cause normally Dell’s in this 'ere game an’ tuhday he ain’t.”  His words caused Sam to roll her eyes: of course it was true that she felt a little put off by the fact that the soldier and the engineer hadn’t come in to town.  However, there was no answer she could give that wouldn’t give away that fact.

“…Hey, so fuckin’ what if Sammy likes Dell?  When he isn’t bein’ a prick, he’s a decent guy, and she feels goddamn sorry for doin’ what she did – can ya blame her for wanting things to go back to the way they fuckin’ were before?”, Gabriel reacted with his usual brand of crude sincerity, causing Pierre to nearly choke on his brandy and Grant to shake his head, while Sam felt mildly relieved that Gabriel had saved her the bother of answering.

“Gabriel, as always you 'ave zee manners of a caveman-”, Pierre muttered as soon as he’d ascertained that the liquor he’d been drinking wouldn’t burn a hole through his lungs, only to get interrupted by the pyro.

“Yeah, an’ you’ve got 'zee blush of zee 'igh school girl’, Pierre – you’ve been in this team just as damn long as  _I_ ’ve been, for fuck’s sake, an’ you  _still_ choke on that fuckin’ cognac of yours every time I swear!”  Grant and Graeme chuckled, while Pierre muttered something in French that had Arsène blush as well and Gabriel react a little snappishly: “J'parle aussi le français, salopard, et t'peux aller t'faire foutre toi-même.”

“Guys, y'ain’t gonna keep cussin’ each other out all night, are yeh?”, Grant said a little moodily before nudging Arsène with his elbow. “Mind puttin’ yer low bet on the table, Arsaine?”

“'E ees right, Pierre, mon cher ami, do not let Gabriel rile you up.”, Sam’s team’s spy reacted as he pushed ten dollars towards the center of the table; Pierre snorted and pushed twenty dollars alongside Arsène’s bet, not speaking up anymore but glaring at Gabriel, who glared pointedly back, Sam could tell.  Putting a hand on Gabriel’s arm, she spoke softly to her boyfriend in an attempt to get him to let go of his apparent grudge against his team’s spy.

“Gabriel, mon amour, don’t let Pierre get you out of that great mood you were in, he’s just… not used to your charm-”

“What Gabriel 'as ees not 'charm’  _du tout_ -”, Pierre muttered, and before Gabriel could react, Sam did.

“Pierre, you’re not helping – I’m pleading  _your_ case here and you’re  _stuffing it up as I speak_ …” The Frenchman looked at her, wide-eyed, and then at Gabriel before huffing, drinking his brandy down in one sip and motioning for the bartender to bring him a new one.

“Gabriel, t'as de la chance avec elle, ne la laisse jamais partir.”

“Like I need you to tell me that, Pierre,  _connard_.”, Gabriel said, though his words were spoken without any bite to them, and his arm snaked around Sam’s waist for a second before he withdrew it again to add his bet to the pile, which got Sam to finally look at her cards and roll her eyes.  She had a ten and an eight in her hands: chances with those cards were slightly higher than usual, but not by much.  However, she decided to wait and see what the rest would do, figuring there wasn’t any harm in wanting to see the first three cards.  To her surprise, Grant laid his cards down, muttering something about 'these cards’re a crime all on their own’, revealing the exact same hand she’d been dealt and making her a little less secure about going along with the rest.  Once Arsène had upped his initial blind bet and the rest of the men didn’t raise, Grant turned over the three next cards, revealing – as if ordained by fate – a two, a nine and a queen.  Sam found herself having great difficulty to keep from smiling.

She was going to play as if she already had a flush in her hands,  _bluffing_ for a change.

“I’ll raise all of you twenty.”, she said, causing Graeme to raise an eyebrow and Arsène to pale – the spy was the first to bow out of the hand, revealing that he had a pair and telling her that her bluff was apparently good enough to hold up, because Arsène was attentive to the most minute detail.  However, she wasn’t out of the woods just yet, because even if her own team’s spy was out of this game, Pierre was even  _more_ attentive than he was, and then there was Gabriel, whose broad grin told her that he had something  _winning_ in his hands, evidenced by the fact that  _he_ raised in turn.

“Put another twenty on there, Sam, mon ange, où montre-nous ce que t'as en main.”

“Yeah, right, like I’ll let you walk off with  _my_ money, mon amour…”, she said, putting the money on the stack.  Graeme’s grin, which he’d acquired when Gabriel challenged her bluff, faltered and the RED demolition expert quickly bowed out of the game, leaving just Pierre, John and Gabriel against her.  The next card turned out to be a six but Sam didn’t show even the least hint that that disappointed her: in fact, as she raised again  _right after Gabriel’s bet_ , bringing the total amount the spy and the soldier needed to put on the pile to an even one hundred, Pierre seemed utterly convinced she couldn’t be bluffing, and John opted out with a somewhat sorrowful look at his bottle of RED Streak Premium.  It was down to her, Pierre and Gabriel when the last card turned, and that was a king – not what she needed, but clearly what Gabriel had been hoping for.  If Gabriel held on until the showdown, he’d win – she had  _nothing_ in her hands, not even a decent high card – but somehow he seemed to play it safe,  _checking_ instead of betting.  Almost as if he seemed unsure and wanted to see what she’d do, to read how good  _her_ cards were.

She hated to disappoint him now.

“Let’s see you guys  _pay_ for that showdown…”, she said as she doubled the stakes – instantly, Pierre threw down his cards, looking stricken.  Gabriel shook his head with a smile, adding a hundred dollar bill to the stack before putting another one on top of it with a grin.  In a heartbeat, Sam pushed aside her reservations as she repeated his actions, wiping Gabriel’s grin away.  He had two options now – follow her bet or walk away – and after clearly carefully weighing both options, he groaned and tossed his cards face up on the table, revealing the jack and the ten that meant he’d so very nearly had a royal flush.

“Merde, I can’t risk it.  T'as un as, j'en suis sûr-”

“J'ai rien.”, Sam said, pulling in the money – when all six men at the table looked at her in confusion, she turned over her cards.  For the longest while, silence reigned, until Gabriel laughed loudly and pulled her virtually onto his lap as he embraced her tightly.

“ _Merde_ , I don’t even mind fuckin’ losing three hundred to ya, Sammy –  _she was bluffing_! Just when I thought I’d seen it all, she manages to surprise me…” The rest of the men at the table didn’t even look away when the pyros kissed, a fact that managed to get Sam to blush softly when she motioned for the bartender.

“Please give these guys whichever drink they last ordered, they  _deserve it_.” The poker table erupted in cheers and Grant pushed the deck of cards on to Arsène, who started meticulously shuffling them.

“Sam, yeh got us all fooled purdy darn well…”, the engineer admitted, running a hand through his thinning hair, holding up his empty beer bottle at the bartender before clapping Sam on the shoulder.  “Yew an’ Gabe buy yerselves a nice bookcase with them 'ere winnin’s, y'hear?”

“I could use that, a fancy-ass bookcase for all my  _decent_ books-”, Gabriel admitted as he let Sam go so she could sit back on her own chair instead of half-across him – instantly, Graeme reacted, his tongue already slipping over some of the sounds he pronounced.

“Ach, lad, y’ nae got decent books!”

“Quoi,  _tu_ sait  _lire_ maintenant ou quoi?!”, Gabriel instantly flared up, bickering with the demoman about whether or not his books about special effects and fireworks could be considered 'decent’, and Sam looked at Grant somewhat helplessly; the engineer returned her look with a roll of his eyes, as if to say 'well, he’s  _your_ problem now’ and then a wink that clearly meant 'it’s not as bad as they sound’, which evidently was proven by the way Gabriel and Graeme both laughed loudly the next moment, their fight already forgotten in favor of the new round of bets that also took up all of Sam’s attention.


	27. And I found my heart inside your hands

“…Wow…” Sam’s soft words, sounding awed and clearly impressed, got Gabriel to look at the Reliable Excavation & Demolition headquarters in a new light.  If he was completely honest, her  _presence_ was already enough to make him look at the building through different eyes.  The last time he’d been there was five years before, when Lander had just died and the police had wanted to question him.  RED had managed to pull strings so that the questioning took place in one of  _their_ interview rooms, probably because they had been curious about the true extent of his relationship with Lander…  Sam’s addition, equally soft-spoken and awed, got his thoughts away from the dreary topic of her predecessor again, fortunately, and back to the matter at hand. “…I’ve seen a lot of office buildings in my lifetime, but  _this… This_ is something else entirely…”

“Heh, yeah, welcome to RED HQ.”, Gabriel admitted.  It  _was_ an impressive building, if he thought about it: fifty floors filled with nothing but offices, for all kinds of endeavours.  At least twenty of the floors were dedicated to the core business, which was the battles: post-production, marketing, packaging, HR, and medical. Then, another ten floors were dedicated to the spin-offs: the pay-per-view TV channel that broadcasted nothing but battles, the four or five cable channels – or satellite channels, he didn’t know which they had anymore because he hadn’t really bothered to remember – the fan magazine, the website, even a store where you could buy merchandise.  Ten more floors were offices for the side businesses: the brewery, the mining company – there was an actual construction/demolition company that RED owned, even, the central office of which was somewhere up on the thirty-seventh floor… and at least one floor was home to a small museum showcasing the history of the company and their side of the rivalry with BLU.  The RED pyro snorted as he thought of how both companies were, in fact, owned by the same holding company, Mann Co..  “…BLU’s HQ is across town - it’s probably exactly the same, only more, uh,  _blue_.”, he said, motioning around.  Whether because the company policy actually dictated that their employees had to wear at least one item of red clothing or because the people preferred to, it mattered little to him.  But the choice of the building materials was clearly the company’s, judging by the company logo inlaid in the entry hall floor in an elaborate and shiny mosaic: the carpets were red, the walls varying in shade from baby pink to deep burgundy, and the lampshades all were a vibrant crimson.  “…Shall we?”, he asked, walking up to one of the receptionists and, contrary to the nerves he felt, grinned broadly at her, making the woman look at him with mild confusion – her look of professional but amused befuddlement was instantly replaced by a deep blush and a hasty distancing turn of her head when he spoke crudely: “Hey, petite, where do I need to be for the medical examinations?”

“ _Gabriel_ , at least  _try_  not to make the reception workers run for their supervisors?”, Sam lightly admonished him, causing him to mutter an apology and sigh when she did the talking for them: “Excuse my boyfriend, he’s just nervous about his medical exam… what floor would we need to go to, miss?”, she asked the still-blushing receptionist, who answered with a high-pitched stammer.

“T-tha-that’d be, uh, the, uh… fi-fifteenth floor – no, the  _fourteenth_ fl-floor, miss!”

“Thanks!”, Sam said, quickly pulling Gabriel away from the reception desk towards the elevator, something he gladly allowed.  The feel of her hand on his, the unyielding and yet soft grip she had on him and the energy with which she pulled at him, they all were enough to make his heart flutter in an altogether more uplifting way than the upcoming medical examination accomplished.  “…Are you still nervous, love?”, she asked as they entered the elevator when it came down, together with about twenty others.

“…That obvious, huh?”, he said, smiling down at her somewhat apologetically.  “…Yeah, I’m so damn nervous, I think I’m never gonna be able to get to the actual medical examination because  _I’m gonna stop fucking breathin’_ the moment the doctor walks in the damn room.  …It’s a goddamn shame ya ain’t allowed to come inside with me-”

“You’d like that, but the doctor might mind, mon amour, especially since you wouldn’t hear anything he said because you’re too busy concentrating on me.”, she said, looking around the elevator furtively, clearly feeling ill at ease surrounded by the men and women in two-piece suits wearing heavy cologne and perfume.  Gabriel had to admit he shared her unease, but if given the choice between a surly company doctor examining him and standing for the rest of eternity in that elevator with Sam by his side, the choice didn’t take any time or effort at all.  Squeezing her hand, he smiled at her and she smiled back, pushing back her unease in favor of making him feel better. “Don’t worry, I’ll be right outside in the waiting room, or the hallway.  I’ve brought some reading material, see?”, she said, producing one of his own books on special effects from her purse and causing him to grin.

“Oh, yeah, that one… Looks like I won’t have to worry about ya getting bored on me.  But still, it’ll suck bein’ away from ya most of the day.”

“We can make up for lost time tonight when we have a nice dinner instead of one we had to cook ourselves.”, she answered, causing him to grin and think about how Graeme hadn’t been eager to take over from him at all.  The demoman had been the one to cook for the team during some of his previous absences as well, and the way the team seemed to mentally steel themselves all the week already was enough of an indication of how well that went over back then.  “…Who’s cooking over on RED side tonight?”, Sam asked, showing that she’d been thinking along the same line of thoughts as he’d been, a fact which promoted the RED pyro to smile.

“Graeme. Nobody was lookin’ forward to it much.  And with you?  Dell?”

“Yes, alongside Siegfried.  The rest of the team has no qualms about it, he’s a decent cook and so is Siegfried.  …Say, Gabriel, I’ve been thinking…”, she said as the elevator stopped on the second floor and most of the people on it got off, leaving only them and two or three more of the people in business attire.  The RED pyro turned to her instantly, his eyes asking the question and prompting her to add: “…You know, we could make a kitchen for ourselves, we’ve got the room for it.  …Well, it’d probably be a mini-kitchen, but-”

“Heh, well, sounds like a nice enough thought.  But it’d mean we get less pay, because it’s part of our jobs to cook for the others-”, he said, halting instantly when she nodded with a heavy sigh.  By the time he spoke up again, the elevator had passed the fourth floor and had lost all but one of the businessmen: the last man in professional attire stood in the other corner of the roomy elevator, looking at them as if they were beneath him, which caused Gabriel to feel tense again.  Sam, fortunately, noticed and squeezed his hand again gently, as if to remind him that she was with him.  “…I hope it’ll be done quickly.  I don’t like peein’ in cups or getting blood drawn or being poked and prodded by a bunch of idiots in white doctor’s coats.  _Connards miserables._  All of ‘em.”, he said emphatically, which got Sam to smile at him and lean her head against his left arm, her temple resting lightly against the bandage over his tattoo.  The elevator doors opened and the last man exited, and the moment the doors closed, Gabriel turned to his girlfriend to hold her against himself properly, his arms resting loosely around her shoulders and across her back.  “…Lucky thing I’ve got you waitin’ for me – if I hadn’t, I’d be going crazy right about now.  I’m such a lucky crétin for havin’ you, Sammy, mon ange de feu.”

“Oh, you’re not a cretin, you’re… tu es parfait, mon amour.  …Well, I think you’re nervous enough to merit a kiss, might get you to relax a little more…”, she admitted – before she’d even finished speaking properly, he had his lips pressed onto hers, relishing in the warmth that transmitted throughout him from everywhere she touched him.  Almost instinctively, he deepened their kiss, barely noticing how her hands on his arms shifted, one of them migrating to tangle in his hair and the other moving to his back to pull him closer.  It was a very effective distraction – too much so, even: when the elevator doors opened and three older businessmen wanted to get in, they were oblivious to the men’s presence until one of them cleared their throat and said somewhat testily that 'you two should keep that for your  _private time_ ’.

“Hey, it ain’t because  _you_ are a shrivelled up  _prune_ , mister big-shot, that  _I_ ’ve gotta be!”, Gabriel flared up, glaring at the man and then adding a look at the two other men to make sure they didn’t try and get smart with him.  Fortunately, the next floor was the fourteenth, where they needed to be, and when the men hastily stepped aside to allow him and Sam to pass, he added a very unforgiving glance at the men as the doors slid close.  “…Merde, where the hell do they think-”

“Oh, Gabriel, we  _were_ a little carried away back then… I should never have indulged you as much as I did…”, Sam interrupted him, though she squeezed his hand the next second and blushed, showing that she’d been enjoying the moment just as much as he had, something which had him grinning.

“You know, I think those doctors could do without me for a minute or two longer-”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea…”, Sam said, though when he pulled her aside to one of the restrooms, she didn’t struggle nearly as much.  “ _Gabriel_ , we r-really… shouldn’t…”, she muttered, breaking away from him to protest half-heartedly, but then kissing him back with the same fervor she’d shown before in mere heartbeats.  However, when the RED pyro let his hands wander to her bottom, giving it a light squeeze, she pulled them up again gently, and after a while she took a step back from him, blushing deeply and breathing heavily, to add: “…T-those doctors are probably looking for you, mon amour…”

“Yeah, I suppose you’ve got a point…”, he admitted, sighing as he let his shoulders droop.  However, the next moment, when Sam gave him a soft kiss on his cheek and gently threaded her fingers with his, he found his mood rise again.  “…Promise me a little somethin’ after all this crap’s done?”, he asked, and she teasingly took a step away from him as she spoke.

“I’ll make no promises, monsieur Dantan, mais si tu te comportes bien, je pense que tu mérites bien quelque chose de spéciale…”

“Heheh…  _hell_ , mon ange, if ya promise me somethin’ special, I’ll behave like a  _saint_ all day long – no lewd comments at the doctors or the nurses, no wincin’ when they draw their twenty fuckin’ vials of blood for whatever tests they fuckin’ need, not even a single complaint about havin’ to stand around in my damn underwear.”  Grinning broadly, he looked her over emphatically, licking his lips: “Donc, quoi de 'spéciale’-”

“Mister Gabriel Dantan?”, came a loud, authorative voice from the end of the hallway, and a grey-haired female doctor appeared, her eyes instantly boring into Gabriel’s form and compelling him to wince. However, looking at Sam and the half-commiserative, half-mirthful look she gave him, he couldn’t help but sigh and repeat his earlier promise.

“Ah well, for you, mon ange, I’ll behave like a saint.”

“Mister Dantan, we don’t have all day, could you-”

“ _Yeah_ , I’m  _there, madame_! Jeez, lemme say 'see ya later’ to my girlfriend, please!”, Gabriel reacted, though he took care to avoid the woman’s gaze as he said it. He was bold, but not to the point where he was blind to the knowledge that it wouldn’t be wise to insult the doctor that’d determine whether he needed an increase or a decrease in his impulse-control meds.  As soon as he was inside, the doctor sighed and motioned for the small cubicle next to the door of her small practice room.

“You know the drill – underwear only, no socks, no glasses or lenses, and  _no using the bathroom_. You’ll want to save that for when you need to pee in a cup.”, she said, her tone mildly annoyed but otherwise purely professional, and Gabriel nodded, figuring that behaving his best and complying without further questions would mean the medical exam would end all the sooner.

 

“…Oh  _dear God,_ who calls at  _seven in the morning_?!”, Sam ground out.  Her mobile had been ringing next to her ear very insistently for ten seconds before going to voicemail – or that would be the idea, because whoever was calling her was clearly not up to speed with the usual etiquette of 'what to do when the person you’re trying to call isn’t answering’, because a second after the phone went to voicemail, a message came in to notify her that her mystery caller had hung up, and a second after  _that_  her mobile rang  _again_.

“Sais-pas, but they can  _go fuck themselves_.”, Gabriel groaned next to her, burying his head underneath his pillow in an attempt to escape the incessant ringing, tempting Sam to do likewise.  However, she figured that maybe the person just didn’t realize the hour.  “…Sainte Mère,  _finally_ some peace and quiet…”, her boyfriend breathed next to her when her phone went quiet again, pulling her against him after a second’s hesitation, something she gladly allowed.  She’d been very comfortable and in the middle of a pleasant dream when her mobile decided to rudely wake her up; now, with Gabriel’s warmth and comforting presence, she hoped that she could find her way back to the happy place she’d been at, or perhaps to a new one that would also include her love.  “…Mmm, mon ange… j'aime bien… ton chaleur… oui…”, Gabriel muttered, nestling his head against her shoulder and letting his fingertips idly caress her stomach, causing her to smile and grab hold of his hand with her own, entwining their fingers.

“J'taime aussi, mon amour… love you…”, she whispered drowsily, gladly letting her sleep-drunk mind turn back to the happy haze she’d been unceremoniously ripped away from.

However, just when she’d lost all sense of herself again, her mobile decided to ring again, pushing any and all relaxation she’d felt well away again.

“Bloody  _hell_ , whoever this is is going to  _pay dearly_ for waking me up so early!”, she ground out, picking up her mobile and pressing 'receive’ before speaking testily: “Yes, who is it?”

“ _Sam?  It’s Damien, I… thought you’d be having breakfast right about now… are you being held back from battle again?”_  It was her brother, sounding suspicious, and instantly all anger flowed from her as if someone had unplugged a drain inside her body.  _“Sammy?”_ , Damien repeated, and Sam sighed.

“Damien! …Oh damn, I… yes, I’m held back from battle, but not for anything  _bad_ , it’s just… Gabriel’s got a medical evaluation and an in-depth psych review yesterday, at the headquarters of his company, and he wanted me present to soothe his nerves, i-its…”  She meant to say 'it’s a long story’ but then she remembered that Damien had probably had another reason for calling, and she changed directions with a second’s hesitation: “…So why do you call?”

“ _I’m not letting you get off that easily, Sam – tell me the_ whole  _story.  Why was your Gabriel getting a medical exam and an in-depth psych eval when he only just got a psych eval by his psychiatrist on your base?  And what did you mean to say there, before you decided to ask my reason for calling? …Mine isn’t urgent, it can wait.  Explain yourself, Samantha Tennant.”_ , he added when she took a breath, ready to give him an excuse; immediately, she exhaled again and shook her head softly, making Gabriel look at her in surprise.

“C'est qui?”

“Damien.”, she answered, before speaking to her brother quickly, before he had the chance to react: “You  _know_ that’s Gabriel, so  _don’t say it_. And… the reason for his medical examination and his second psychiatrical evaluation is because he asked, during his last talk with his doctor, to have his medication re-examined.”

“ _Re-examined as in lessened?”_ , Damien asked, his tone clearly indicating that he found it a less-than-good idea, and a little of Sam’s earlier exasperation entered her voice again as she answered curtly.

“Re-examined as in lessened or upped, Damien – and we both know the risks involved in both cases.  …So, now that your curiosity has been satisfied, how about returning the favor?  Why are you calling at seven in the morning?”

“ _It’s not seven in the morning here, it’s about four in the afternoon here, and I just got out of a business meeting.  …Well, the reason why I called is because I happen to be in Antwerp at the moment-”_  Sam cut him off at that point, feeling frail all of a sudden.  Her brother hadn’t mentioned that he called because he was about to visit their parents, but he didn’t need to, the mention of the city already told her all she needed to know.

“Still no reason to wake me and Gabriel up from our sleep.”

“ _I didn’t know, Sam, I honestly thought I’d give you a quick call before battle and ask if you wanted me to say or ask anything!”_ , Damien said defensively, his voice a little annoyed, and Sam sighed.

“…Yes, well…  I don’t know of anything that’s left to say or ask mum and dad.  I mean, I’ve got  _thousands_ of things I’d like to say, of course, but those aren’t words that should come from you.  And if I have questions, I bloody well will ask them face to face.”, she added testily, and Damien sighed.

“ _…I hope this visit’s going to be easier than my previous few telephone calls with mum, she’s yelled at me each and every time.  …I’m meeting dad first, he’s going to drive me to their new home, I wouldn’t have a clue how to get there… I don’t know if you’ve ever been here-”_

“I was in Holland, Dami, not Belgium, but I know what you mean.”, Sam said, grinning as Gabriel kissed her shoulder.  Seemingly, her grin transmitted through the telephone, because her brother sighed and spoke in a lightly admonishing tone.

“ _Tell your boyfriend to lay off you for a while, please?  I can_ hear  _his hands going places I’d rather not think about.”_ He gave her time to tell Gabriel off, but she didn’t have to speak: Gabriel, his ear being right next to her mobile when Damien had spoken, lifted his hands off her with a broad grin, though he didn’t move even the slightest fraction of an inch away from her, his warmth still transmitting to her and warming her from the inside out.  _“…Anyway, I’ll meet dad first, and then mum.  I don’t have a lot of time for my visit, though – an hour, tops, before I need to be back at the hotel.  But… Well, I’ll see how it goes.  …Sammy, is there anything, maybe, you want me to tell or ask_ dad  _in private?  I mean, you and him-”_  It felt as if he’d read her mind, Sam mused as she tried in vain to calm her erratically-beating heart.  She and her father had a much better rapport than she and her mother; where her mother was tyrannical and iron-willed, her father was much more compassionate and gentle.

“…There’s only one question I can think of…”, she lied – there were  _millions_ of questions that came to mind, and millions more behind those – before sighing and adding: “There’s only one question  _important_ enough to ask.  Ask dad… ask him whether he…  A-ask him if he really wants my life ruined any more than it already is because of…”

“ _I’ll ask him whether his_ heart  _is really in all those attempts at getting you sued for something you did not do.”_ , Damien said, his voice soft and understanding, making Sam see their father’s influence inside of him.  Gabriel’s gentle, soothing touch on her upper arm further calmed the turmoil that had been awakened in her, and she even managed a soft smile.

“…Dad ought to be proud of you, you take after him more than anyone figured.”

“ _Heh, he knows that, I think, Sammy dearest… well, I’m supposed to meet dad in five minutes so I’ll run.  Can I call you in a couple of hours to let you know how it went?”_ , he asked, and Sam sighed.

“I’ll be in and out of conference rooms all day today giving interviews together with Gabriel for the fan magazine… text message me.  And don’t… just be honest, okay?  If mum’s being a right banshee  _again_ -”

“ _Oh, I know better than to try and sugarcoat it for you, Sam, you know that. …Okay then, I’ll be honest.  About mum’s reaction and about dad’s reaction.  …Wish Gabriel good luck with his evaluation and tell him to be on his best behaviour-”_

“I  _know_ I’m supposed to fuckin’ behave, Damien, what, d'ya think I’m an idiot?”, Gabriel grumbled, causing Damien to clearly and almost audibly roll his eyes on the other end of the line, Sam found.  However, he didn’t speak, leaving her free to do so.

“We’ll both be on our best behaviour, Damien.  Oh, and give me a call once you’re back home?  There’s other news that I’ll need to discuss with you at length before you get a call from the Administrator-General and you’re completely unaware of the situation – not to worry, it’s a  _good_ thing-”

“ _Sammy, if you’re referring to the fact that you nearly got kicked off the team and are now working on making a room for yourself and Gabriel in between both of your teams’ sides of the base, that call already came and I wasn’t as much surprised at the fact as I was surprised that it took you two so long to_ freak out  _about_ being kept apart.   _…Then again, the Administrator-General did mention you two didn’t exactly stick to the half-orders your teams’ engineers gave, so I imagine you wouldn’t complain if you’d already found ways to  circumvent-”_

“You already knew and you didn’t mention it?”, Sam asked, adding the next second: “Wait, scratch that – I nearly got fired and you didn’t have a heart attack?”

“ _I didn’t say I didn’t.  I thought I needed a visit to the ER when she told me mister Conagher fired you, until she said that BLU has no intention of dismissing you except for gross misconduct.  I don’t know how, but somehow you’ve made a lot of fans in your company.”_

“That’d be because she’s  _damn good_ at her job, Damien.”, Gabriel again responded in her stead, and this time Sam didn’t need to add anything.

“ _Well, I’d guessed as much, Gabriel, but thank you for the input.  …Well, I’ll leave you now, okay?  Behave, and make that interview a good one. I’ll send a text to let you know how it went and how mum was.”_

“And dad.”, Sam said somewhat pleadingly, causing Damien to repeat her words to confirm his intention.

“ _And dad.  Have a nice day, you two.”_ The call ended then, after which Sam put down the telephone on the nightstand again with a soft sigh, turning to Gabriel who instantly pulled her against him tightly in a comforting hug.

“…Hey, look, mon ange… don’t ya worry about your parents, okay?  You can’t help how they are, and you sure as hell can’t change 'em. …T'inquiètes pas…”, he said again, kissing her on the cheek gently and then tenderly nuzzling his head against her shoulder. “Tell ya what, since the company’s payin’ for this hotel room anyway, what do you say to orderin’ our breakfast up, so we can have breakfast in bed?”  Sam smiled at him, pressing her lips lovingly to his for a short though meaningful kiss.

“Gabriel, mon amour, that’d be lovely.  And… and I love you, mon trésor.” His answer was a longer, light, infinitely tender kiss that only ended when both their stomachs loudly grumbled.

“Well, mon ange, mon coeur, j’t'aime tant, que l'univers n'en connaît des mots pour décrire le sentiment.  Even if our stomachs ain’t very romantic at the moment.”, he added when his stomach grumbled again lightly, causing her to laugh and grab the hotel telephone to call and order their breakfast up to their room.

 

“Hiya there, son, how’d it go?”  The moment Grant laid eyes on him, it seemed to Gabriel, the engineer came walking up to him.  He still wore his battle uniform – his overalls had several holes in it, and his hardhat and kneeguards were cracked, which was enough to make Gabriel understand that it’d been a tough battle that day.  Guessing his thoughts, Grant motioned himself over and made a dismissive hand gesture as he added: “Ah, me?  Nevermind that, Gabe, pardner – had a li'l meetin’ with Archie on tha’ there battlefield.  He’s good, managed tuh still shoot me t'shreds when he had t'have a broken head an’ a massive concussion.  He died couple'a seconds later, Pierre told me.  …So, how’d yer medical exam an’ everything go?”

“Ah, c'était très bon!”, Gabriel admitted proudly, grinning.  “But, uh, doc Hayakawa’s comin’ over tonight after dinner – she didn’t have time earlier today, elle a son boulot à l'enfer dont j'suis venu.”

“Y'oughta stop callin’ tha’ prison 'hell’, Dante, son…”, Grant said, though he smiled as he spoke – Gabriel knew that the engineer knew well enough why he called that place 'hell’, something the man showed in his next words: “…Ah mean, ah git tha’ it ain’t exactly heaven fer a pyromaniac like yerself, but it ain’t s'posed tuh be a  _good_ place, otherwise what’d be the point in havin’ it?”

“J'sais, j'sais…  Anyway, it went great as far as I know.  I also got a new respect for doc Hardass – I swear, the doctor at HQ that examined me made him look like  _Florence fuckin’ Nightingale_! She didn’t even tell me to look away before she poked the needle for drawin’ blood into my elbow.  Look, I’ve still got a damn bruise there 'cause I flinched!”, he added emphatically, pulling up his sleeve to show the inside of his elbow, where the darkening bruise stood out against the paleness of the rest of his skin.  “Cette docteur foirée…”, he added under his breath before shaking his head to dismiss the thought of the doctor, instead focusing on more important matters: “…Anyway, the rest went perfectly fine.  Sammy an’ I got roomservice this mornin’ when we got called awake by Damien, who was about to visit her parents…”

“Oh, bet  _tha’_ were a nice conversation…”, Grant said – he knew a little about Sam’s trouble with her parents, such as the fact that she’d been sued twice already by them and the fact that they’d moved out of England and had changed their last names – before shaking his head.  “The comp'ny ain’t gonna foot yer bill if'n yeh got room service, Gabe, son – th'Administrator ain’t got a lot'f patience with yew…”

“I know, but me an’ Sammy are gonna raise their popularity through the roof with what we did.  The interview and the photoshoot… man, I swear, if that photographer hadn’t been so clearly uninterested in Sammy, he would’ve gotten a black eye by the end of the day, he kept saying how 'beautiful’ and 'elegant’ and 'charming’ she was.  He called me 'okay’-”

“Which’s prob'ly a lucky thing – if'n he weren’t interested in Sam, he might’ve had eyes fer yew more, son-”

“Yeah, well,  _I_ sure as hell wasn’t lookin’ anywhere but Sam.  Just like I haven’t looked anywhere but her ever since her and me got together.”, Gabriel said emphatically and honestly, smiling fondly at the memory.  Sam  _had_ been jealous of the photographer, despite the man’s very obvious disinterest in him, and that had made his heart triple in size inside his ribcage, judging by the feeling.  “…Elle est mon rêve, Grant, I swear to the fuckin’ Lord, why would I ever want anythin’ else?  That was the fuckin’  _point_ of all of this, anyway – to get my meds re-evaluated, see if I can’t make do with a little less… or if I need a little more…”, he added when Grant meant to speak up to mention the possibility, nipping the engineer’s protest in the bud before tacking on a weary sigh. “…Anyway, uh, I’m freshenin’ up and then I’ll help ya make dinner-”

“Aw, ’s mighty kind'a yeh, Gabe, son, but ain’t no need.  We’re gonna have tuh learn t'make do with a li'l less'a yer help anyways-”

“But I wanna help!”, Gabriel eagerly offered, chuckling in mild amusement when Grant looked at him in surprise.  “I missed cooking, so fuckin’ what?”

“Ah never would'a figured it from yeh, son – yeh used t'hate cookin’ an’ cleanin’ up…”, Grant admitted, grinning softly and shaking his head before adding: “Looks like Sam really made y'a better yew. …Awright, git freshened up, yeh kin help me cook if'n yeh really want tuh.  ’s beef casserole.”

“Sounds delicious, mon ami.  Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be there-”, he started, only for Grant to pat him on the shoulder and motion himself over.

“’m gonna need a li'l longer 'n fifteen minutes tuh git mahself purdied up 'gain, son.  But if'n yeh’re ready that early, yeh kin clean th'vegetables.  Carrots, peas, bell peppers, an’ onions.”

“Got it.”, Gabriel said, waving the engineer off before heading for the shower himself.  The energy he suddenly felt, whether it originated from how well the exams had gone or from the joy of being back on base where his life properly together with Sam would soon start, propagated him to shower quickly and then tend to the dinner preparations, so much so that all of the vegetables were cleaned and the meat was stewing already when Grant finally turned up in the kitchen.  “…Heh, hey Grant, I, uh…”, the pyro muttered, feeling a little self-conscious suddenly, but the other man waved off his protests and nodded in clear approval.

“Smells jus’ like when mah ma makes 'er stew, son.  Ain’t need tuh say nuthin’.  Hell, yeh saved  _me_ a lot 'f time an’ the rest'a the team a lot'f waitin’.”  The rest of the team, admittedly, was already sitting in the dining room, at an already laid-out table, grinning in anticipation or licking their lips at the mouth-watering smell that emanated from the two large pots Gabriel was constantly stirring in.  After only five minutes, it was done, and once the pyro and engineer had carried the pots inside the dining room, it felt like only five more minutes until those pots were empty and their stomachs filled to bursting.

“Anyone up for seconds?  Non?”, Gabriel asked teasingly, chuckling when the rest of the team groaned at the mention of more food, “Don’t worry, there ain’t more, you ate everything we made.  But it’s nice that you liked the food, since it was cooked with care.”

“Gabe, ya ain’t turnin’ all 'housewife’ on us, are ya?”, Billy asked with a chuckle, causing the tallest of the team to motion himself over. He wore a frilly pink apron with white flowers printed all over it – nevermind that it clashed horribly with his clothes or that he barely could tie the strings together, he’d worn it for every day of his nearly nine years of cooking.  The scout chuckled again and nodded, knowing what his friend and once-lover meant without him having to speak it out loud.  “Yeah, that apron ain’t an excuse, ya shithead. Don’t ya go an’ pretend to be a big softy, we all  _know_ ya got that axe'a yours in ya room.”

“Don’t ferget his flamethrower, son – ain’t no big softy tha’ goes 'round burnin’ behinds like Dante does.”, the engineer added, and the rest of the men laughed softly, Gabriel joining in without reservation. Then, however, his cellphone bleeped, causing the pyro to curse softly and untie his apron.

“Grant, c'est doc Hayakawa, she’s here early… mind doin’ the dishes alone-”

“Yeah, but since it’s yer doctor, yeh’re excused from duty fer jus’ this once, Gabe, son.  Graeme’ll help, won’t yeh?”

“Shoore, Grant, ah’ll help yoo!”, the Scotsman agreed loudly, his voice only moderately slurred, and Gabriel dashed off to open the door for his doctor, who greeted him with her usual warm but subdued charm.

“Gabriel, so very nice to see you today.”  He smiled back at her a little apologetically as he held out his cellphone.

“Nice to see ya too, but, uh, could you just… hang in a sec?  I’m callin’ Sammy, I-”

“I figured I’d be a little early, so I took the liberty of swinging by the BLU side of your base first, to let your girlfriend know I’m here – she’s coming over in a minute or two, once she’d done her kitchen duties.  …I must say you’re both very dutiful – even after two days of stress, you’re both doing the chores that are expected of you, and doing them eagerly at that.”  The mention of that one all-important word, 'eagerly’, made Gabriel grin broadly and nod.

“Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to cook more than I did today.  It just… I feel good-”

“I feel good too, love, because  _you’re_ doing so very well.”, Sam’s voice issued from behind him right before her arms wrapped around his torso in a slightly awkward but clearly loving hug.  “I’m sorry I didn’t come here with doctor Hayakawa, but I only had three more dishes to dry-”

“Aucune problème, mon ange.  …Uh, shall we?”, he asked, suddenly feeling a little nervous again, and his doctor nodded.

“Yes, Gabriel, lead the way.”, she said, motioning for him to go first. He did so hesitantly, every step adding more tension until he felt like his entire body was rigid and every flex of a joint physically hurt.  Still, he managed to make it to his room quickly enough, and when he sank down on the edge of his bed and Sam sat right beside him, her hand on his knee and her thumb running slow, soothing circles over the fabric of his track pants, he felt his body relax again.

“Donc…”, he said softly, his voice sounding demure and slightly fearful even to himself; the doctor heard it as well and nodded, speaking to him in her usual businesslike tone.

“So… I’ve read the results of the medical exam and the independent in-depth psychological analysis, and I’ve compared them with my own notes, presented my findings to your Administrator-General, who has decided to approve my advice.  So… I’ve got good news for you, Gabriel, your meds will be cut down.  You-”

“Aw YES!!”, he cheered, cutting across the doctor’s voice and instantly blushing when he realized he’d interrupted her.  Looking at his hands, one of which had grabbed hold of Sam’s – or had been grabbed hold of by Sam, he didn’t know and it didn’t matter – he carefully molded his face and his voice to adopt a meek expression as he added: “…J'suis désolé, doc… continue…”

“Heh, it’s okay for you to be happy about it, Gabriel, it  _is_ a pretty big milestone after all.  Your new-found control over your urges, your sudden decrease in your alcohol abuse…  The company doctor has done some very extensive blood tests for liver enzymes, to see if there was any damage done by well-on six years of almost daily excessive drinking – and either your family has livers that can withstand nuclear warfare or you’ve been lucky enough to prefer vanilla gin, but you’ve got only minimal residual effects from it. Well, let’s just say that you’re a lucky man in a lot of ways.  Your physical health is prime for a man of your age and stature – normally, taller men like you have joint problems left and right, but you don’t have any of that.  Oh, uh, the Administrator-General asked me to tell you expressly that you’re a very lucky man in another way as well…”, the psychiatrist admitted, blushing softly, which made Gabriel guess what the general topic would be, “…you, uh, don’t have any STDs.”

“Well,  _hell,_ the Administrator could'a let the  _doctor_ tell me that…”, the RED pyro grumbled, feeling a little upset that the vulture-like woman had embarrassed his psychiatrist as she had, but the woman seemed to have recovered from her earlier shame and waved his protests off.

“Well, thanks for the consideration, Gabriel, but… it’s okay.  I… have listened to you talk about every escapade you’ve had, sometimes in very, uh,  _explicit_ detail… you might have punched the doctor if she’d told you that you’d been tested for that as well, and knowing how your relationship is with the on-site medic-”

“ _Merde_ , yeah, that company doctor made even doc Hardass look professional an’ amiable.  …Bien, j'ai plus de respect pour lui dès jeudi.  Mais on parlait de ma médication?”, he added, and the doctor nodded, becoming more grave again.

“Yeah… you know as well as I do – and perhaps you know as well, Samantha – but I want to make sure that you’re completely informed.  Your dosage will be halved – not right away, since the type of medication you’re on needs to be lowered carefully, but for the next two weeks, you’ll take thirty milligram pills once a day instead of two twenty milligram pills.  And two weeks after  _that_ , you can start taking  _one_ twenty milligram pill instead of the thirty milligram ones.  Doctor Hartmann’s been told to give you your new regimen starting next Monday.  You know the complaints you had when you started the medication, back in Chicago-”  Gabriel’s nods made the woman stop abruptly – probably because she knew how much he liked the mention of prison – and he remembered the time as well as a bleak period of his life.  Doctor Hayakawa seemingly voiced each of the symptoms he’d had as it occurred to him: “Insomnia or hypersomnia, decreased sex drive, decreased appetite, mood swings, depressive behavior and thoughts, cardiovascular problems such as heart palpitations, spontaneous bruises, nosebleeds… not to mention the problems your, uh,  _self-medication_ could still have caused…  You’ll need to be closely monitored. Samantha-”

“Doctor Hayakawa, I’d call you the second I feel out of my depth, with  _anything_ psychological that Gabriel is going through, and our teams’ medics are surely on standby in case of any serious medical problems.  We’ll manage just fine.  I can take Gabriel having mood swings, I can take one or two nights of sex less per week – hell, as long as Gabriel benefits from it in the long run, I could take having  _no sex for months_  – and I’m sure I can take all the other things as well.  Gabriel is strong, both of body and of mind – that’s what these exams were about, weren’t they?  To see if he’d be able to cope with the physical and mental stress changing his med regimen would bring?”

“Yes, indeed, and Gabriel passed with ease.  But it’ll still be a difficult period, and you both should be prepared for that.”  The RED pyro found himself shaking on the inside, suddenly fearful.  He hadn’t given much thought to the fact that the troubles he’d had when he’d started his current medication regimen would rear their ugly head again when he’d decrease… in hindsight, he knew he should have considered it more, not jump in blindly.  Then, however, a calmth fell over him again and he looked at Sam, finding her looking at him with that look in her eyes that had made him first say that she was a rock, and he nodded firmly.

“I’m prepared for it.”

“I am, too.  Whatever Gabriel’ll go through, he won’t have to go through it alone – not anymore, not ever again.”, his girlfriend said, and he grabbed her hand, gently intertwining their fingers and enjoying the warmth that exuded from it.  His psychiatrist seemed to notice the fact that there was a lot of unspoken promises between him and Sam, the tall pyro mused, because she merely nodded and turned to the subject of them sharing a room next, prompting him to eagerly discuss what had happened and how far their preparations already stood, meanwhile smiling and gently thanking God and all of his angels, starting with his mother and then on to Samantha before naming every archangel that he could think of, for the way that his life was turning out now.  Perhaps he’d been wrong all those years; perhaps he wasn’t as much of a sinner as he was a misguided soul that had lost its way after all.


	28. Your shining light will be my guide (leads me to a place where I don't need to hide)

“Phew… this is… hard work!”, Sam remarked, wiping her forehead clean with a handkerchief as she sat on one of the chairs they’d put inside their future living/dining room, causing Gabriel to smile at her and Grant to cast her a look of mild mirth.

“Yeah, if'n yeh thought it’d be easy-goin’, y'might as well give up now, Sam, pardner – wallpaperin’ ain’t no light task.  But yeh’re righ’ a li'l, ’s been two hours, maybe we oughta take a li'l breather now. …Yeh’re sure ‘bout wantin’ yer kitchen there, right?”, he asked, pointing at the wall where he’d drilled a hole to reinsert the plumbing they’d previously removed, and Sam nodded.

“Yes, absolutely positive.  Tiles ordered and everything.  That entire wall…”, she said, motioning for the wall they’d let bare, “…will be covered by cupboards, kitchen appliances, and  _beautiful_ little mosaic tiles.  I’ve called the company and they’ll be installing it next Wednesday while we’re in battle-”

“Hell, did you promise 'em hazard pay?”, Gabriel asked, grinning broadly, most likely amused at the thought of the workmen all shaking in their boots when they were only two yards away from a fierce battleground with  _live ammunition_ ; Sam shook her head and rolled her eyes.

“No, because they’re used to that kind of thing.  It’s BLU’s construction division, who apparently build entire homes and who have remodeled entire bases while the teams on them were in battle… so they have no problem at all fitting a kitchen into a small apartment on a base even as we fight.”

“BLU, huh?”, Grant said, leaning back against the bare wall, taking a cleansing and hopefully refreshing sip of his beer.  “Well, 'least they got 'builders’ in their comp'ny name.  That’s gotta be a good sign.”

“They’re very capable.  Just as capable as RED.  In fact, I’m fairly certain they’re  _exactly_ as capable as the RED construction division, because they’re  _managed by the same holding company_. It wouldn’t make sense for one company to be iffy and the other company to be top notch, would it?”, Sam said, and Gabriel chuckled – it took Grant a while to fall in with her boyfriend’s mirth, probably because he’d had to push aside a few reservations. “…Funny how, even if we’re not enemies, the other company is still a source of distrust…”, she remarked again, and Gabriel snorted at that.

“Pfeh, méfiance n'est pas le bon terme. La fidélisation, c'est probablement ce qu'il est: l'éloge de votre propre employeur et d'prendre garde sur les employeurs des autres. Surtout dans notre cas.  …I mean, RED pays me an’ Grant so we’re bound to at least praise 'em; the same’s true for BLU and you, mon ange.”  Sam chuckled and nodded.

“I… maybe, yes.  I don’t consider myself an actual employee of BLU, though, but of Katchan Fire.  I was employed by them and then instantly outsourced to BLU, so I could just as easily be outsourced to RED.”

“T'fais rigole.”, Gabriel said, looking at Sam as if she’d just told him that apples fell to the sky instead of to the ground: she bit her lip softly and shook her head.

“Je suis sérieuse, mon amour.  I  _do_ have a lifetime contract, but it’s with Katchan Fire and not with BLU.  _Katchan Fire_ has an outsourcing agreement with BLU of three years that gets renewed for three years each time unless Katchan Fire or BLU cancels the agreement, or unless I decide to focus on fireworks again.  But let’s be honest…”, she said, smiling softly, “…I’d be a little foolish if I gave up this job.  Not only because of Gabriel…”, she admitted, her words rewarded by a soft kiss from her boyfriend, “…but also because this job makes me _double_ of what my previous job made me and it still allows me to make fireworks, just not for big displays but for my own pleasure.  I see only perks, don’t you?”

“Rien que d'avantages, ouais.”, Gabriel readily admitted, and Grant chuckled.

“Sam, dahlin’, yew got a good deal goin’ fer yeh, better 'n most'a us.  Ah mean, Gabe ain’t got no choice with his contract with th'company – he  _had_ tuh take a lifetime contract, otherwise he’d still be in tha’ there prison in Chicago – an’ mah contract’s fer mah entire career too… Th'only ones that ain’t got long-term contracts ’re Will an’ Arch – scouts ’re only allowed tuh stay on fer as long ’s they kin be in prime medical condition.  Th'oldest scout we had were Ron, tha’ were the guy 'fore Will – he was 'bout Gabe’s age, maybe a year younger… signed on when he were twenty-four, same year ’s Dante 'ere did-”

“Merde, n'me rappelle pas, I  _hated_ those days.”, Gabriel ground out – Sam meant to speak up and ask how he could’ve hated the other man, but then she remembered something he’d said before about the previous scout and how difficult it had been for him to share a room with the man, and she nodded.

“It wasn’t easy on you, right?  You said so once.”

“Hell, imagine if Arch’ was  _exactly your type_  and at the same time  _not the least bit fuckin’ interested_. Then you’ve got the picture pretty goddamn well.  Ron was fuckin’ hot – not just attractive, but I mean 'tearin’ off clothes’  _smoking hot_. And he was also straight as they come.  Had a girlfriend back home that he went back to marry, I think.”  Sam gave Grant a somewhat sympathetic look, figuring the RED engineer wouldn’t like hearing about Gabriel’s needs like that, but the man didn’t seem too bothered, something that was explained by his next words.

“Gabe, son, y'told me millions'a times how yeh weren’t even lookin’ fer anything.  Even if Ron’d been int'rested-”

“Oui, j'sais – I know.  I was badly shaken up back then.  Still was  _hard_ sharin’ a room with a guy that ya only had to  _look_ at to get your body goin’.  …Luckily, after that, Lander and I talked – and when I confessed to  _him_ that I would love nothin’ more than to just…”  It was a mark of Gabriel’s new-found self-restraint as well as a proof of the depth of the respect he felt towards Grant, Sam supposed, that he didn’t outright say that he’d wanted to sleep with his team’s previous scout; Grant didn’t seem to need him to explicitly voice the continuation, at any rate, nodding and allowing the RED pyro to continue: “…Well, when I confessed that to Lander, he just… he  _grinned_ and took me to his room and-”  Quickly, he cleared his throat and blushed, looking at Grant sideways before turning to Sam, leaning down to whisper in her ear what he didn’t want to say out loud: “ _…He told me that he didn’t understand how I’d been able to go three and a half years without having slept with anyone, and after that we slept together.  C'était comme une libération, si j'suis honnête.  Meant fuck-all to him, of course, but it meant the world to me, knowing someone understood.”_

“Oh, Gabriel, I know how hard that has to have been, for no one to understand how hard life was for you…  I…  I told you about how I lost my previous job, didn’t I?”, she said, and Grant looked at her in clear confusion, causing her to elaborate quickly for the engineer’s benefit: “It’s not a secret, really – I had a job with Katchan Fire Britain before everything happened that brought me here, but at one of the parties where we’d done a huge display, I got more than a little drunk and ended up sleeping with my boss.  The rest of the team blamed me, and to make up for the  _huge_ lapse in judgment I’d had, I resigned the moment we were back home.” Grant sighed, shaking his head, but he didn’t speak up, which was a mark of the friendship he felt towards  _her_ , Sam supposed, a realization that warmed her heart a little.  She had to admit the Georgian counterpart to Dell was amiable and laid-back, and she appreciated his friendship just as much as Dell’s.  “…Well, back in the beginning, nobody understood why I’d done that – why I’d slept with my boss, I mean – and everyone thought it was my mistake so it was my mess.  Until… until I came here, and I told Archie what had happened, and he said 'well,  _fuck_ , Sam, ya former team should'a been ashamed'a themselves!  Ya were  _drunk_ an’ ya boss prob'ly  _pushed ya_ for it!   _He_ was supposed ta say 'no’ to ya!’ and that…  I could’ve kissed him for that.  Nobody had understood – not my father, not Damien, not my friends and my co-workers…”

“Well, he were right.”, Grant said calmly, shaking his head ever so slightly.  “Yer boss oughta have been th'one tuh say 'no’, he had a position 'f power, not yew.”

“Yeah, the hell was he thinkin’?”, Gabriel said, and Sam leaned the back of her head against Gabriel’s hip as he stood next to her, looking up at him and catching his eye.  His look softened as she watched, and he sighed a few seconds later, reaching down to gently run his fingers over her cheek as he added: “N'importe – he was probably a fuckin’ loser anyway, and ya’re doin’ a lot better in the job department now, aren’t ya?”

“ _Way_ better – I don’t know any other job where they’d take a workplace romance like we have as lightly as the Administrator-General does. …Anyway, we should probably get started again, otherwise this room is  _never_ getting wallpapered, and we need it to be  _done_ so we can start putting that floor in tomorrow.  The sooner we have a floor, the sooner we’ll be ready for our furniture and our light fixtures and our kitchen…”  Grant groaned before draining his beer and Gabriel sighed as well, though as Sam got up, he pulled her a little closer and whispered the addition she had thought but not voiced.

“…And the sooner we can actually  _live_ and  _sleep_ in here…”  He smiled at her generously before picking up the brush with which he’d been spreading wallpapering glue over the walls and dipped it into the gooey mixture again as he spoke up louder: “…C'mon, if we lose another weekend-”

“Awrigh’, yeh’ve got a point, let’s git this over with…”, the engineer quickly interrupted, already measuring and cutting the next length of wallpaper to put up on the long wall of her and Gabriel’s future living/dining room, handing it to Sam to put up and smooth out.

 

“…Danti, you haff good eye for dis…”, Radovan admitted, the sound of his voice causing Gabriel to look up from the board he’d been cutting to the required size.

“Ya mean it?”

“Da. Radovan never jokes about working.”, the Russian simply stated, his face splitting into a gentle smile the next second as he spoke on: “Haff had many people to work with – old men, young men, men that build houses, men that build toys… but you… you haff clear vision of what you wish to build.  Is important.  …You never work like dis before?”, he asked again, and Gabriel chuckled.

“J'te jure que non, mon ami – I never even held a hammer before.  I was shit at things like this.”  Smiling, the pyro shook his head, considering his abysmal track record with woodworking, one particular memory coming to mind that he gladly voiced the next moment: “…I still remember when I was in my first year of sécondaire – that’s middle school, in case ya wondered – an’ we had to make this woodworking project.  We all got a cut of a small tree to whittle somethin’ nice for arts and crafts, and I wanted to make a key rack for my mom… well, lemme tell ya, they laughed their fuckin’ heads off at Urgences.  I had sutures all along the back of my hand for a month to allow the chips of wood to still come  _out_ of the wound-”

“…Danti was probably just teen age and impatient, da?”, Radovan asked with a patient smile, and Gabriel chuckled.

“That’s what’s so damn étonnant about how well this project is goin’, mon ami… I’m still impatient.  But maybe I was just clumsier twenty-or-so years ago.  I mean, I constantly dropped shit too.  My mom  _barred_ me from la vaisselle until I nearly moved out and she used to constantly joke that I should wash my hands more to get rid of all the grease.” The bulky Russian chuckled as well and after that, the two men worked on in silence for the longest while, a silence that was only broken on sparse occasions where either one of them asked the other to hand them a tool or read them another measurement for double-checking.  However, when Gabriel was chipping away some excess wood from one of the ligatures, to make sure that the piece he was working on would fit seamlessly with the others, the heavy weapons expert sighed and spoke again.

“…Danti… talk more about past now.  Is good thing, but Radovan is curious… why?”  For a good ten seconds, silence hung heavy between the two men as Gabriel considered the man’s question.  He hadn’t known that he’d opened up about himself more – or, he corrected himself, he hadn’t known that he’d opened up about himself more to everyone of his team.  Grant was a notable exception to the rule, of course, because he’d had to at first and then, later, he found himself trusting the engineer explicitly; but the others had been slightly distrustful and as a result he hadn’t bothered investing energy in them.  However, the reason why he’d become more at ease around the team as of late was obvious, and brought a smile to his face.

“Samantha, bien sûr.  She’s makin’ me feel like I’ve got a lot more chances than I thought at first, and she’s makin’ me wanna make the fuckin’ most of all of 'em.  And she  _fights_ for me – hell, when we were only together a couple of weeks, she went head-to-head with Grant about how the team treated me with mépris, and she was  _fierce_.”

“Samantha… little BLU pyro is fierce in battle too.  Good fighter, much fighting spirit in little tiny body.”, the heavy said, grinning at Gabriel and adding with a teasing wink: “Danti must be happy,  _happy_ man with her.”

“T'as aucune idée, mon ami… I am the luckiest fucking bastard this side of the universe 'cause of her.  If she hadn’t come along, who the hell  _knows_ what would'a happened?”, the RED pyro admitted, sighing and taking up the woodworking tools he’d put down again; however, he didn’t start reapplying himself to the project they were working on just yet, instead thinking about Sam and the way she made him a better person every day.  “…Elle est une rêve…  She’s a dream, Rado,  _my_ dream.”

“You call her 'angel’, Pierre said.  You haff much love for her, and she for you, cam'rad.”  The heavy’s question was unposed but it didn’t take a genius to know what his words implied, and Gabriel found himself nodding.

“Like I said, you’ve got no idea, mon ami.  She’s… elle est parfaite. Beautiful, sweet, kind, fierce, passionate… smart, strong…  _Perfect_. How could any man not see her and fall in love like a fool?  ’s Also why I’m so damn jealous of anyone else.  I want her all to myself. She’s the first one that I covet like that.  Billy… sure,  _he_ was jealous of anyone that I screwed around with, an’ that was flattering as hell, but I wasn’t jealous about anyone  _he_ spent his nights with that wasn’t me.  Not that there were a lotta guys he went with – Archie, a couple of times, Arsène, Rudolf-”

“Rudolf?”, Radovan asked, nonplussed.  “Nyet, Rudolf isn’t…”  It was clear, from the Russian’s tone and his hesitation as he spoke, that it wasn’t that he was angry about the suggestion; instead, he genuinely seemed to disbelieve the notion that the German doctor had shared his bed with men.  Sighing, Gabriel shook his head and answered his colleague with honesty.

“He… he and I were together a couple of times too, so yeah, I’m pretty fuckin’ sure he  _is…_ But that doesn’t mean anything.  I mean, look at  _me_. I thought I only got interested in men, until I met Sammy an’ it turned out I don’t want anyone but her.  …Hey, Rado, you’re not… I mean, you’re not upset about Rudolf, are ya?”, he asked tentatively.  The Russian and the German shared a room and if he somehow disrupted their close friendship by his confession, then he’d feel more than a little guilty.  Fortunately, the heavy shook his head solemnly and exhaled slowly.

“Nyet, I am not upset.  Just… surprised.  Is all.  Had not noticed Rudolf look at little scout, even, apart from when healing him.  Had noticed Rudolf looking at Danti, but not like that.”

“Yeah, the doc an’ me… fuckin’ complicated.  I’m glad Sammy came along to tie  _that_ shit up with a goddamn li'l bow on top an’ a 'don’t do shit like this ever again’ sticker  _all over it_. Same goes for the crap with Graeme-”

“Graeme and Danti, was not big secret.  Everyone knows what you did, and when.”

“Merde, c'est quoi, tout le monde parle d'moi et mes erreurs foutues, ou quoi?!”, Gabriel said emphatically, feeling a little more than annoyed that he’d been the subject of gossip.  However, the next second, the somewhat angry rush of emotions died away again when he heard a little voice in the back of his head say that he shouldn’t be surprised by that – the voice sounded an awful lot like Sam’s to him, too, telling him that she would be reasonable about it and that she would think her way through whatever had happened – and a second after that, Radovan softly patted him on the shoulder in an effort to console him, speaking soothingly to him.

“Danti is better man now, no more misbehaving, no more drinking too much. Is better for everyone.  Radovan is glad little BLU pyro make Danti better dan he was.  …Rest of team is also glad little BLU pyro make Danti better.”, he concluded, and Gabriel rolled his eyes.

“All Sammy did was bring out what was already in here.”, he admitted, patting his chest, and Radovan shook his head.

“Nyet. Little BLU pyro did more, much more.  She helps Danti use  _dis_ …”, he said, poking one beefy finger against Gabriel’s forehead to indicate his brain, “…and makes Danti listen more to  _dis_ …”, he added, poking his finger against Gabriel’s chest next intending to point at his heart, “…instead of listening to  _needs_. Is better.  For everyone.”  Gabriel grinned, unable to find a way to better voice that the heavy was right.  So instead, he nodded and patted the Russian on the shoulder amically.

“T'as raison, Radovan.  Sam’s made me speak an’ act from the  _heart_ and the  _head_ instead of from… well, ya get it, anyway.  …Now, uh, ignoring the fact that I’m actually making us a bed-”  The Russian laughed loudly at that, causing Gabriel to look at him in confusion, until the man elaborated the reason for his mirth.

“Danti and little Samantha haff much needs, but bed is for more dan needs. Bed is for health… and for heart, too.  Waking up next to person you love… dat is for heart.  No matter what you do in bed – sleep, not sleep…”  He took up the next bit of lumber and looked it over, smiling.  “Good bed,  _sturdy_ bed, builds good and sturdy love.”

“Yeah, it needs to be good and hold up, because…”, Gabriel started, halting and  _thinking_ the remainder of his sentence instead of  _voicing_ it. However, Radovan nodded, nudging Gabriel with his fleshy elbow before handing him the piece of lumber he’d evidently approved.  The two men worked in silence for a bit longer, until Radovan spoke up again.

“…Danti, haff to ask… you… love little BLU pyro from first moment? Byla li eto lyubov’’ s pervogo vzglyada?Because little BLU pyro is cheek, and I thought Danti did not want. Never want cheek.  Always want men, like you said before.”  Gabriel pondered that question for a few seconds before smiling and answering somewhat mysteriously.

“Sometimes you meet someone and it’s like you’ve been waiting for them to come along all your life.  Doesn’t matter if you’re five or fifty-five – doesn’t matter who or what they are, you’re  _lost forever_. C'était le coup d'foudre, oui, mais au même temps c'était  _plus_ que ça.  It was love at first sight, but also a  _hell_ of a lot more, mon ami.  …Now, come on, what was the measurements of  _this_ piece again?”, he added when the Russian seemed to want to speak up again, deciding that their candid conversation was getting in the way of his work – and Radovan nodded, looking over the paper again and starting to sum up the measurements that Gabriel then eagerly copied on the relevant places on the piece of wood in his hands with the pencil he held.  After that, the two men kept their minds on their work, though they sometimes gave each other knowing, warm smiles, as if to share the fact that they agreed that Sam and Gabriel’s relationship was the best thing that had ever happened to the RED and BLU pyros.

 

“…Hmmm, vhrrrr hhhshhh hhhmm…”, Sam muttered that Wednesday, sending a short burst of burning gasoline into the corridor where Pierre had fled to the moment he’d been discovered, causing Dell to shake his head.

“Ain’t nuthin’, Sam, li'l lady… c'mon, he’s gon’ either show 'is face again or he ain’t, an’ in both cases y'ain’t gonna find 'im by wastin’ yer breath…”  The engineer held out a small bottle of beer to her and Sam sighed, lifting her gas mask off her face before accepting the bottle.

“I know I won’t find him by shouting my head off at an empty hallway, but it makes me  _feel_ like I’m doing  _something_ rather than just waiting for him to come back.  He’s waiting for us to turn our backs again, I’m sure of it-”

“Nah, he’s prob'ly run back tuh bandage 'is wounds – he were lucky y'were refillin’.”  The thought made Sam chuckle and nod.  She’d just been pouring fresh gasoline into the fuel tank of her flamethrower when the spy had taken up his spot behind Dell’s back, ready to stab the engineer, and the flicker of his cloaking device betrayed him.  She’d grabbed her shotgun and had unloaded four shells into the spy, causing her teammate to look behind him and hit the spy hard on the shoulder just when he tried to stab, causing his arm to go limp suddenly and the spy to yelp and run off.  Her friend was right, at least, in that respect: with his right arm next to useless, the spy wouldn’t be waiting around in the corridor.  As if he’d read her mind, Dell continued: “…If'n he runs 'cross Rudolf, 'is arm’s gon’ be as good as healed, but otherwise ah’m thinkin’ we saw th'last'a that spah-”

“Yeah, you always say that, Dell, and yet he always keeps coming back…”, Sam said, raising her beer bottle in a mock toast to her own words before taking another draught and sighing contentedly.  “…Ahh… Dell, you ought to find a way to get a hammock up between your dispenser and the wall…”

“Naw, Sam, li'l lady – that’d make it mighty easy fer Pierre tuh backstab me.  He ought'a have it a li'l hard, otherwise he’s gon’ git lazy.” Snorting softly, he nudged Sam with his elbow, speaking softly: “…by th'way, speakin'a lazy… Arch’s been a li'l moody, an’ more than a li'l foul-tempered if'n Jane or me or doc Steinheim say somethin’ about it… maybe yew oughta have a li'l talk t'him.  Ah figure y'can git the message intuh his brain one way or 'nother, Sam.”  The pyro found herself shaking her head softly as Dell winked at her to soften his final statement.

“I doubt that I’ve got that big of an impact on him, but I’m willing to try, sure…  So, uh, you say he’s been a little moody?”, she asked, and the engineer nodded knowingly.

“Ah dunno if'n it’s 'cause he’s  _jealous_ 'a yew an’ Dante or 'cause he’s  _angry_ at Dante fer stealin’ y'away-”

“Or because he just misses Billy, that can be the case as well – I mean, with me and Gabriel going to live together, he maybe is lonely… and Billy’s got to be lonely as well…”

“Heh, don’t think his bein’ lonely’s what’s got 'im down – he were alone all the time 'fore yeh started, after all – but… yeah, maybe he misses Billy.  Anyway, if'n yew c'n have a li'l talk with 'im, see if'n yeh can’t figure out what it is ’s got 'im all down an’ depressed-   _h-uhh…_ ” Suddenly, the engineer grunted and sagged against his dispenser, and Sam cursed, dropping her beer bottle and dousing her surroundings in burning gasoline, igniting the spy that had been tiptoeing carefully around her to end up behind her back.  

“ _Putain!_ ”, he swore, dodging Sam’s fireaxe as she switched weapons due to his proximity, meanwhile swatting out the flames that had bloomed up all around his left arm; he kept dodging while doing his best to put out the flames, weaving around her, not getting any closer to backstabbing her than she got closer at incapacitating him with her own weapon – however, as soon as the flames licking at his arm were extinguished again, her luck turned suddenly when he turned right at her, his guard down for a split second.  “ _Merd-AAAAAAHHH!_ ” His heartfelt curse turned into a sharp, pained cry as Sam swung her fireaxe into his chest, splattering her face liberally with the man’s blood.  “ _M-merde…_ ”, he whimpered before Sam kicked his form off her weapon, freeing it again.  In the meantime, Dell’s lifeless form had disappeared as well, and the BLU pyro sighed as she leaned back against the dispenser, looking somewhat mournfully at the bottle of beer which had rolled against it, its contents having poured out completely save for a few flecks of foam on the bottom.

“…Damn it, Pierre… couldn’t you have waited one more minute?”, she muttered – the next thing she knew, she heard the  _loud_ sound of a cloaking device right behind her, and seemingly at the same time she felt the bite of cold steel in her lower back, the butterfly knife making the life drain from her in mere heartbeats.

“I could not, non, but-”  Right before Sam’s eyes closed, she could see the spy fall down dead right beside her, the back of his head a bloody mess, and Dell towering over him with his wrench firmly in both hands, breathing hard and looking at her in clear agony.  Then, the respawn system picked her up and she felt light; by the time she opened her eyes again, there wasn’t even the faintest sign that she’d been stabbed to death, the miracle machine having re-energized the pyro.

“…Oh hey!”, came the enthusiastic greeting from her right side, and she turned around to see Archie lean against the resupply cupboard, reloading his Force-a-nature sawed-off shotgun though he halted when she turned to him.  “Ya got offed too, huh?”

“Pierre.”, she said, and the scout snorted at the mention of his future stepfather, causing Sam to add: “…Dead Ringer.  I think I need to start dousing Dell’s little hidey-holes in burning gasoline even  _after_ I’ve killed your dear future stepfather, to make sure he  _is_ dead. And you?”, she asked, though she could guess the answer from the way he checked his arms at her mention of burning gasoline.

“…Ya lovah.  Torched me like a cheap damn match, an’ then Axtinguished me-”

“So kind of him, huh?”, she joked, prompting a groan from the scout.

“Hey, ’s bad enough you an’ him get to sleep tagetha every single night an’ me an’ Billy ain’t getting ta see each otha until tha weekend, don’t go  _jokin’_ about it.  Or him.”, he said, though he didn’t sound angry rather than annoyed at the situation, causing her to sigh and sit down next to him.

“…I didn’t mean to upset you, Archie – besides, what’s going on between me and Gabriel is different from what’s going on between you and Billy, or do you mean to tell me that you and him are now head-over-heels too?”  The scout looked at her in confusion, prompting her to elaborate: “You and him, is it as serious as me and Gabriel?”

“Well, it ain’t just all  _screwin’ around_ , me an’ him, if that’s what ya mean.  We talk… we play video games togetha, watch baseball matches togetha… an’ we fuck, yeah, but you an’ ya lovahboy do that too, and ya do it a hell of a lot more than me an’ Billy.”, the scout added matter-of-factly, causing Sam to chuckle, though not out of mockery of her friend’s words.

“Okay, yes, that sounds like the two of you have at least the foundation for a nice and stable relationship… so, uh, you’ll probably see where it goes, I guess, you and Billy…”

“We  _know_ where it goes, Sam, doll, we just gotta look at you an’ Dante for that. …Nah, but, ya know, it’s kinda frustrating that people ain’t takin’ me an’ him serious, ya know?  Not that we’re  _engaged_ or anything-”

“Hm, neither are Gabriel and I, Archie, but it seems like a discourtesy of the men to not look at you and Billy the same way as they regard me and Gabriel, it sounds like you’re just as committed to each other.”, Sam interrupted, and Archie blinked, looking at her incredulously before nodding and speaking in a much warmer, and infinitely more relaxed tone of voice.

“…Yeah, that’s exactly how me an’ him feel about it!  I mean, the othas all treat you an’ Dante like ya  _married_ or somethin’, but me an’ Billy get treated like we’re just screwin’ around, and that  _ain’t true_! We’ve got just as good a thing as you an’  _Mumbles the psycho RED pyro-_ ouch, hey, quit it!”, he said as Sam hit him on the back of the head, though he was grinning as he complained, taking the plaintive note out of his voice.  The next second, grin still firmly in place, he added: “But thanks for ya confidence in me an’ Billy.  Ya know, we’re actually goin’ ta my place for Thanksgivin’?  Billy’s mom said it was okay as long as we go ovah there for Christmas an’ New Year’s – an’ we’re sendin’ his li'l sis a gift so she ain’t miss him. Picked it out an’ ordered it yestahday, she’s gonna love it.” Looking at her friend, seeing him grin broadly and warmly at the thought of his boyfriend’s younger sister, Sam suddenly felt the need to pat the scout on the shoulder and speak appreciatively.

“…You and Billy  _deserve_ to be as happy as you make each other, and I hope you’re just as happy together as me and Gabriel are, if not even more.”  Again, a look of surprise flitted over the youth’s face before his grin broadened and grew even warmer.

“Heh, same right back at ya, Sam – you an’ ya hyped-up matchstick boyfriend, ya  _deserve_ to be happy togetha… now, ya ready to go back out there an’ get  _them_ for a change?”, he asked, ominously loading his shotgun.  “I got a li'l hot lead as a thank-you gift for Dante-”

“And I’ve got a good mind to use Pierre’s dismembered body in lieu of firewood, build me and Dell a little happy campfire…”, Sam said, slipping her gas mask back over her face as she made her way back to the engineer, knowing he’d be waiting for her by his dispenser as he had before.

 

“I swear to the fuckin’  _Lord,_ what a bunch of  _connards incompétents_ even  _packed this_?!”, Gabriel half-exclaimed that Friday, prompting Grant and Sam to look up from their own tasks and causing him to blush softly, not having intended to speak as loudly as he had.  “This is some goddamn  _merde_ right fuckin’ here… they  _forgot to pack the goddamn screws_.”, he added in a more subdued tone, venting his anger with a chain of swearwords aimed at the otherwise friendly people of 'ATM Lighting  & Interior Decoration Company’, even if he knew that they couldn’t help his plight.  After all, they hadn’t packaged the lamp, they’d just sold it to him.  As if guessing his thoughts, Grant nodded slowly and, after making sure the doorframe he was installing was held firmly in place, walked over to him to take a look at the instruction manual and the elements he’d taken out of the box and laid out in front of him.  Wordlessly, he nodded, clearly mentally ticking off each component that was needed before frowning and picking up the box, looking it over three times before sighing.

“It happens, Dante, son… says here yeh need one an’ a quarter inch length screws with flat heads, think ah got 'em in mah stores, jus’ hang on, okay?  …Sam, dahlin’, kin yew manage?”, he asked, turning around to the BLU pyro, who raised her thumb without looking up from her work.

“I think I can manage to install a light fixture, Grant, I  _make fireworks for a living_ , this is hardly more complicated.”, she said with a soft grin, causing the engineer to chuckle.

“Well, if'n yeh put it tha’ way…  Be righ’ back, awrigh’?”  He headed off, leaving Gabriel to walk over to his girlfriend to look at her work as she put up the light fixture for their bedroom light, whistling appreciatively as she stretched on the ladder to tighten the last of the screws.  Turning at him, she blew him a kiss and then wiggled her hips softly, laughing as she did so.

“Admiring the view, mon amour?”, she asked lightly, leaning down for a kiss that he gladly offered her before nodding.

“Oh, I’ll never get tired of seein’ you, mon ange.  Jamais d'ma vie.  I could just sit an’ watch you work for hours and I’d never wanna look away.”

“I’ll bet you’d love watching me work, simply because then  _you_ wouldn’t have to work.”, she chimed in, giving the screws one last turn before slowly stepping down so she stood on firm ground again, putting the screwdriver she’d used on the top step of the ladder she’d vacated.  “But I’d get so terribly distracted by you, love, I wouldn’t be able to get anything done at all.  …Now, before we give that screwdriver to Grant… let’s see if this  _works_ …” She meant to reach for the light switch, but Gabriel grinned and leaned against the wall, effectively blocking her from reaching it, causing her to roll her eyes and try to reach around him; every time she tried to wiggle her hand between his waist and the wall, he laughed softly and tried to kiss her, effectively distracting her to the point where she sometimes just lightly kissed him instead of still going for the light switch.  Then, however, she seemed to decide on another plan of attack and she started to lightly tickle him, and his soft chuckles turned into  loud bursts of laughter that had his stomach feel like it was cramping up from the inside out.

“N-non, fais pas… j-j'peux plus… respirer…”, he managed to utter in between, and Sam gave up her tickling in favor of hugging him tightly, arms wrapped around him as if meaning to never let him go, and he eagerly leaned into her to kiss her, something that only ended him up pressed even more tightly against the wall as she kissed back. After a while, he gave up his previous teasing and just wrapped his arms around her loosely, holding her in place while she did the same, one hand again tangling in his hair and the other resting on his shoulder as she indulged his whim – or, he supposed distractedly as she all but purred into their kiss, _their_ whim – to just kiss.

“…When y'all are done  _gittin’ distracted,_ maybe yeh’d like tuh git some  _work_ done…”, Grant’s voice issued from the other side of the wall – the engineer sounded half amused and half embarrassed, and Gabriel chuckled because of the latter half as he detached from Sam again and winked at her before speaking in a faked heated tone.

“ _Je m'en fous de Grant,_ Sammy, we don’t need a bed-”

“Dante, son, if'n yeh want me tuh leave yew an’ yer li'l lady alone fer an hour or two, y'jus’ gotta say the word an’ ah’ll go back t'mah room…”, Grant said, showing he’d heard Gabriel chuckle and knew that he hadn’t been actually propositioning Sam: the RED pyro rolled his eyes and gave Sam a soft, light kiss on her cheek before leaning sideways so he could look at the other man through the doorway next to which he and Sam had been standing.

“We were just-”

“-bein’ like y'always are, the pair'a yeh…”, the engineer quickly supplied with a sigh that showed amusement and the slightest hint of fond care.  Sam quickly tested the light she’d just fitted and, seeing that it worked, stepped away from her boyfriend though not outside of arm’s reach, allowing him to keep a loose hold on her while she spoke to Grant.

“Like God intended us to be, Grant, you know that.”

“Yeah, well,  _yew_ are young an’ in love, Sam, pardner –  _Gabriel_ only got  _half_ 'a yer excuse.  He may be in love, but he’s closer tuh me in age 'n he is t'yew.”  Sam nodded, though she rolled her eyes, Gabriel noticed, as she answered that sentiment.

“So all the others like reminding me as well, at least twice a day. Gabriel’s young at heart, and the rest I  _don’t care about_. I love him for his  _heart_ , not his  _age_.”

“Oui – Sammy makes me feel her age again, what the hell’s wrong with that, huh?”, Gabriel added, and Grant gave him a softly disparaging look before shaking his head and nudging his head at the side of the room he stood in.

“C'mon, then,  _boy_ , y'ain’t gonna git any work done when yeh’re actin’ like a dayum teenager…”  The pyro snorted but let go of Sam after a last idle caress of her side with his scarred fingers, joining his team’s engineer in their future living room again where the man deposited the screws that, he had to admit, looked  _exactly_ like the ones pictured.  However, just as he meant to climb up on the ladder, Grant held him back, his eyes betraying that the man’s words were serious.  “…Dante, pardner… yeh’re gon’ have tuh lay off'a Sam a li'l bit more, otherwise yeh’re gon’ git complaints. 'Specially from the guys over at BLU, they hate seein’ her leave 'em as it is.”

“Je m'en fous de les autres, ils ne sont que des jaloux-”, Gabriel started somewhat hotly, but the engineer’s words, spoken calmly and soothingly, made the indignant rage die out instantly after it had flared up again.

“Yeh care – 'cause Sam cares 'bout her team, yew care 'bout 'em too, Gabe, don’t yeh try an’ lie tuh me.  An’ yeh know Sam loves yew  _deeply_ , but seein’ her team treat yew an’ her like yeh’re constantly thinkin'a gittin’ yerselves some, that’s gon’ hurt her-”

“-an’ it’s gonna hurt me because it’ll hurt her.  Okay, ouais, t'as raison, mon vieux.  I  _do_ care about their opinions – and about the opinions of you guys.  Even doc Ha- I mean, even _Rudolf_ ’s expert opinion.”  If the engineer found it odd that he’d suddenly called their medic by his first name instead of using the unkind nickname he’d bestowed on the man, he didn’t mention it, though his look did soften somewhat and he allowed Gabriel to climb up the ladder like he’d been intending to, where he could finally fix the support hook that he needed to put the elaborate light fixture up. “…I mean, you guys have gotta miss my fine cuisine-”

“Yeah, tha’ much we  _are_ gon’ miss.  Yer drunk charm an’ the keepin’ us all up at all hours'a the night tuhgether with Suhmantha?  Not so much.”

“Pfeh, you an’ the rest of the team just need to get yourself some.   _You_ first an’ foremost, mon ami – get that ex-wife of yours drunk and in bed next time you see her-”  The engineer took a weak swing at him, that Gabriel dodged without even risking his balance, precarious as it was as he held the light fixture on the ladder.

“Dante, ’s all yew think 'bout really gittin’ laid?”, the man asked, and Gabriel rolled his eyes before answering truthfully, his tone not in the least bit lewd though his words were brutally honest and uncensored.

“When it comes to me and Sam, yeah, sure, all I think about is  _d'la baiser_. But you and that wife of yours… I  _saw_ the way ya look at her, ami, and the way  _she_ looks at  _you_. She still wants you… an’ I don’t just mean she  _wants_ you, I mean she  _loves_ you. Elle t'aime beaucoup, Grant.”  The engineer gave a soft, mournful sigh as he shook his head.

“…Carol an’ me, ’s…  It’s a heckuva lot more complicated 'n jus’ frustration, Dante, pardner-”

“Oh, trust me, Grant, it might be more than frustration, but frustration’s got a lot to do with it.”  The interruption came from the side, where Sam stood, leaning against the wall, smiling softly: as Grant looked at the BLU pyro, Gabriel did so as well, silently commending his girlfriend for her effective and truthful remark, which she elaborated on the next second: “…I mean, I can only tell it as I see it, Grant, dear, but your wife looks at you like you’re the answer to every prayer she’s ever uttered.  She loves the way you treat your little girl, she loves the way you talk about your job with passion, she loves the way you put your hand on her shoulder lightly whenever you feel like hugging her… but she  _hates_ that you don’t  _hug_ her. She  _hates_ that you treat her like she’s your friend.  I honestly think that she  _regrets_ having forced you to choose between your family and your job.  And then there’s the fact that she doesn’t seem to have a new man in her life – I mean, that’s not the way a woman that wants to move on behaves, now, is it?”  The engineer clearly looked taken aback by the last statement; when he didn’t respond, Gabriel felt certain enough of himself to add to Sam’s thought.

“Yeah, Grant – I mean, sure, maybe you think that your Carol’d keep somethin’ like that from you, but your li'l Lynn didn’t say anything either about any guy her mom’s been seein’ regularly, right?  And she’d be the  _first_ to know if your ex-wife was  _serious_ about anyone.”

“…Y-yeah… yeah, she ain’t said nothin’… ah mean, Lynn said she’d hate tuh have t'call anyone apart from me 'daddy’, so she’d tell me if'n anyone were close 'nough tuh Carol t'warrant it…”  He didn’t speak up anymore, not even to spur Gabriel back to work, but he seemed more relaxed, and as Gabriel put up the light fixture with the screws that Grant handed him, the engineer even smiled broadly, prompting the RED pyro to grin.  If anyone deserved to get the same happiness that Sam gave him, it was Grant, the man that had never judged even his worst sins, the man that hadn’t given up on him despite how damaged he had made himself.


	29. We must dream of promised lands and fields

“You guys, might I have your attention for a moment?”, Sam said the next evening, smiling broadly despite herself.  She knew she’d be closing a chapter but the thought of the new chapter she’d start in the same breath was too alluring.  Next to her, Archie gave her a good-natured nudge with his elbow, and Dell gave her an almost unnoticeable thumbs-up, but the rest of the men seemed not to have heard her speak up at all, causing her to sigh and reiterate her statement a little louder.  When even that didn’t prove effective, she put her hands around her mouth and spoke loudly: “GUYS!!”  As if a ‘mute’ button had been pressed, the six other mercenaries fell silent simultaneously, looking at her in varying degrees of annoyance.  “Now that I have your attention…”, Sam said, smiling apologetically before motioning around her, at the empty plates that still stood on the table, “…this was the last meal cooked by yours truly.  Your next meals will be courtesy of Dell and Siegfried, because, as you all know-”

“As we all know, you and that hippy RED of yours are going to be  _living together_.”, Jane interrupted, making the fact that she and Gabriel would be sharing living quarters sound as if it were a sin and causing Dell to sigh.

“Jane, don’t make this sound like Sam’s committin’ a murder or somethin’ like tha’… we all discussed this, an’ we all agreed this’d be the best darn solution tuh a difficult situation.  Her an’ Dante livin’ t'gether is gon’ be awkward at first, but ’s a hell 'f a lot better 'n bein’ kept awake ev'ry other night.”  The soldier huffed but didn’t comment any further, allowing Sam to continue her statement.

“…Anyway, your next meals will be provided courtesy of Dell and Siegfried again, for which I cannot thank them enough,  _but_ … since both Dell and Siegfried will be going home for Thanksgiving and Gabriel and I  _won’t_ , we’ll be cooking for whoever among you stays on base.  As I understand it, that’ll be a grand total of five others-”

“That’d jus’ be Mun-deh, tha’ naeve Chris from RED, doctor Hartmann… uh, who else, lasseh?”, Tavish asked, prompting Sam to snort.

“Theo, Chris, Rudolf, Graeme, and Radovan.  So Theo is going to get to enjoy my cooking again.  Also, for those among you that are going to miss my fine cuisine, I’ve promised Dell and Siegfried that I’ll cook with them as well whenever there’s a special occasion, like the visitor’s day or that barbecue we had a little over a month ago-”

“Aw  _yeah_!”, Archie cheered, grinning from ear to ear and prompting Sam to emulate the gesture.  She’d told the scout that she wouldn’t be cooking anymore, but had saved the news that she’d still cook alongside the medic and engineer as a special treat.  However, the next second, she turned serious again despite her grin as she turned to the next topic, which was infinitely more important.

“I also have a little bit of news regarding the disused respawn room that-”

“The disused respawn room that she an’ Gabriel kindly kept in use fer us all since they got t'gether.”, Dell said mildly, prompting the men to snicker and Sam to faintly blush as she continued.

“Yes,  _thank you_ for phrasing it like  _that_ , Dell.  Anyway, the disused respawn room is going to be occupied by me – and by  _me alone_ , in light of the reason, in case any of you worry – in order to hold up my end of the bargain with Dell and Grant, which is making the explosives we all use.  The remote detonation packs for our engineers’ equipment, Graeme and Tavish’ grenades and stickies, John and Jane’s rockets, the shotgun shells half of us use… Dell and Grant made them until today, but to free up time in their schedules to cook and wash dishes, they shifted that responsibility to me.”

“An’ Gabriel?  What’d he promise to do, lasseh?”, Tavish asked shrewdly, causing Sam to roll her eyes.

“…Gabriel has promised to assist Siegfried and Rudolf with their apothecaries. He used to work for a pharmaceutical company, so he knows his way around the chemicals they have in store-”  The rest of the group looked more than a little apprehensive at the thought of Gabriel mixing their medication for them, which caused Sam to abruptly pause her own statement for a weary sigh.  “Look, you guys, I love you all to  _bits_ , but you’ve got to learn to start  _having a little bit of faith_ in Gabriel.  He’s a good man-”

“He’s a firestarter, Sam.”, the soldier said, his tone of voice showing that, to him, her previous suggestion to show faith in her RED counterpart, was tantamount to insulting America and its forefathers; next to him, Arsène looked like he had serious reservations as well. Fortunately, before she had to speak up again to defend her boyfriend, Siegfried intervened, his voice soft and yet the firm trust in it as steadfast as cast iron.

“Zhere ist a lot wrong with herr Dantan, but ever zince he und Zamantha haff been verliebt, he haz been zhe changed man.  Und… Zamantha, darf ich es ihn sagen?”  The pyro knew immediately what he meant and nodded, figuring that her team deserved to know, just as Gabriel’s team probably would know by now.  “Herr Dantan haz asked, in his last pzychiatrical review by hiz own doctor, to haff his medicazhion reazhjusted.  Zhere will be a period vhere he iz… vhere he vill need to be monitored closely-”

“By  _me_ , not by  _you sorry lot_.”, Sam said emphatically, knowing that the men would be looking for her lover to make a mistake and end up on their bad side again regardless of her words but figuring she had to at least try and defend Gabriel from their biased scrutiny.  Next to her, Siegfried took over again.

“-but zhat vill be up to Zamantha, me, doctor Hartmann from Gabriel’s team, und his pzychiatrizt, doctor Hayakawa.  Ve, however, haff already  _zeen_ zhat he is changed.  Haff any of you notizhed zhat herr Dantan drinks less in zhe weekends?  Zhat he does not buy zhe bottles of liquor any more in zhe town?  Zhat he haz not zlept wizh anyone ozher zhan Zamantha for zhe last zhree monzhs?”  The rest of the group sat in silence after those questions, not answering but also not protesting, and Sam grinned as finally,  _Jane_ was the first to speak up, his tone making clear that he did so begrudgingly.

“…He’d better not make us all sick because he’s distracted, no matter why!”

“Gabriel’s got a good head on his shoulders, and he’ll be dedicated and focused while he’s in those apothecaries.”, Sam said, her tone mild but her eyes passing over the group, fixing each of the eight men opposite and next to her with a short look that clearly communicated 'if anyone dares give Gabriel trouble about this, he’ll be very sorry very soon’: Jane and Tavish clearly interpreted it as she’d intended, and the others merely gave her glances back that ranged from 'oh please, don’t you know me better than that?’ to 'Gabriel is lucky to have you, Sam’.  The latter sentiment was even _voiced_  by Archie, the scout grinning from ear to ear.

“Dante’s one lucky dipshit to have ya, Sam – I mean, I don’t exactly trust him just yet, 'cause he’s gotta do a lot bettah 'n just be okayed by some company doctah to take less anti-fiyah-startin’ pills, but I trust  _you_ an’ ya seem pretty fuckin’ confident he’s gonna do great, so I’m on board with it.”  The others quickly voiced their agreement with the scout’s statement and Sam nodded softly, until finally Dell gave her a wink that showed he was on board with it as well.

“Okay, now that you know what Gabriel and I will be spending our time on for you guys-”, Sam started, only to halt as another thought occurred to her.  Grinning, she changed track mid-sentence: “There’s one more thing that might be worth a mention, though… I’ll be making more than explosives in that disused respawn room, thanks in part to Dell’s two wonderful and  _persuasive_ children…”

“Aw,  _hell_ , ah  _knew_ they shouldn’t'a asked yew…”, the engineer said, though he said it with a modest grin – a grin, Sam wasn’t surprised to see, that was mirrored on the soldier’s face as well.  Whoever thought the two men’s affair was not one of the utmost respect and depth was incredibly mistaken, clearly.  However, the next second, the heavy spoke up, his tone of voice carefully guarded.

“Vhot vill little pyro make that is not bombs and explosives?”

“What I was trained and  _born_ to make, Yaro’.”  When the men looked at her in varying degrees of confusion and apprehension, she added a sigh and the necessary elaboration: “ _Fireworks_ , guys, I’ll be making  _fireworks_ for a display for Dell’s children as well as for a display for myself and one on the base.”

“Fireworks?”, the Russian asked; Siegfried shared a quick whispered discussion with his friend, after which Yaroslav smiled broadly and nodded.  “Da, is very good!  Little pyro will make us all very happy!”

“I certainly hope so – can you believe I’m looking forward to this more than I was looking forward to the visitor’s day?”

“Ach, lasseh, that’s only raeth…”, Tavish said with a broad grin, patting her on the shoulder.  “Yoor job ’s yer passion, tha’ much is fer shoore…  A man wood need to be fookin’ blind not to see tha’.”  Then, however, he raised his bottle of scrumpy in a toast of sorts and bellowed out his next words: “T'Sam!  Here t'hopin’ she an’ Dantun nae keep us all awoke fer th'years too come!”  The rest of the men looked at the demoman in clear distaste, but Sam smiled and raised her own glass of lemonade and added:

“And to all of you guys, may you be in good hands with Dell and Siegfried so Gabriel won’t be  _too_ busy making you all a lifetime supply of antacids.”  A round of laughter followed, and the BLU pyro relaxed again, feeling elated at the prospect of leaving a warm group of friends and colleagues for an even warmer home with the man she loved, but at the same time not leaving anything behind.

 

“There they are…”  The moment Gabriel and Sam entered the bar the next evening, everyone went quiet, suspiciously so, and Gabriel had to bite back a somewhat annoyed groan.  He had been dreading the moment when they’d join their teams for a drink that night, because he’d  _known_ that they’d start to make comments or ask awkward questions… but now he found himself preferring those to the sudden quasi- _knowing_ silence the others now indulged in.  Even Archie and Billy, who had probably been together at either one side of the base the previous night keeping one half of their colleagues awake, didn’t even say a word. Fortunately, there were a couple of men that could be relied on not to be able to keep quiet for long, and that night Yaroslav’s curiosity won out, even before Theo or Chris’ lewdness or the scouts’ energetic need to tease the pyros.

“Little Sam and Danti look well-rested.  First night in new room was good, da?”  Gabriel nearly sighed in relief before catching himself just in time and rolling his eyes, pulling Sam a little closer.

“Yaroslav, think how  _you_ ’d feel wakin’ up next to your wife.   _That’s_ how fuckin’ amazing it was.  The rest of you sorry assholes-”

“Gabriel, mon amour, they were just teasing us  _very ineffectively_. So, Dell, Grant, how was  _your_ night?”, Sam interrupted him, seamlessly moving on to the question she’d been meaning to ask the engineers afterward, and both men looked their way with all-too-knowing smiles.

“Peaceful, S'mantha, pardner.”, Grant admitted, and Dell chuckled, nodding but not voicing his agreement, which left Sam the opportunity to grin and speak.

“Nice to hear, because I played some pretty loud music at around twelve. You clearly didn’t hear even one note of it.”  The men all looked at her in confusion now, some outright disbelieving her words, until Archie groaned and spoke up.

“Tha  _hell_ , Sam, I thought I was goin’ crazy when I heard ya music last night! Billy said I was hearin’ things!”

“Billy clearly wasn’t focused on the  _music_.”, Sam remarked, and the focus of the gathered teams shifted to the two scouts, who were a lot more successful at getting their colleagues to give it a rest.  When the two joined Gabriel and Sam at the bar, the RED pyro simply raised his glass to them in a silent but clear thank-you gesture that Sam carefully voiced to Archie.

“…You were very quick on the uptake there, Arch’.”

“Yeah, well, we ain’t heard a peep from you an’ Dante, so I guess we should be thankin’ you-”  Sam’s instant blush made Gabriel grin faintly. Of course the music had been a lie, but so would be agreeing with that statement.  In the end, he found himself giving the verbal answer to Archie’s statement.

“…Yeah, well, ya should be thankin’  _Grant_ , like he’s probably thankin’ himself.  …Anyway, pick your poison, guys – ’s my treat for once.  Sam’s idea to have me helpin’ Siegfried an’ doc- I mean,  _Rudolf_ … Her idea’s givin’ me a pay rise.  And herself as well.  We’ve both gotta dedicate a couple of hours a night to workin’ with chemicals, but at least we’ve got a good fuckin’ deal this way.  Plus, 'cause we can eat whenever we wanna, we can work quietly while you guys are at dinner.  No time wasted, everyone’s happy.  Doc Ha- I mean,  _Rudolf_ even told me that he looks forward to cookin’, says it’s been ages since he last got to cook.  He was  _happy_ when I suggested it.  Grant… not so much.  Apparently our Georgian tech-head likes eating good food more than he likes cookin’ it.”

“Hey, that ain’t an excuse.  I mean, Dell had to learn to cook when I joined BLU – when I pointed out that he should cook tha food, the othas all agreed an’ told him 'you’re tha cook now’.  Doc Steinheim cooked before that.”, Archie remarked, grinning the next second. “Ah well, at least our doc an’ engie are okay in tha kitchen.  Yaro already agreed to do the washin’-up with our doc, so that Dell’s still got enough time for tweakin’ his sentries – not that he’s gonna use tha time ta actually  _tweak his sentries_ , though…”, he added secretively, glancing over at the engineer and the soldier, who sat next to each other as always, like the best friends they were.  It prompted Sam to sigh and shake her head softly.

“…Archie, Dell and Jane… aren’t like me and Gabriel.  They  _are_ just friends that sometimes… well, that admit that necessity beats their preconceptions.  They love their wives deeply – especially Dell, he’s  _devoted_ to her and his children – and we shouldn’t judge them.  Least of all you, Archie, since you were to Arsène what Jane is to Dell.”  For a few seconds, Archie looked at her, clearly intending to say a good few words about how the situation between him and the spy had been different – but Gabriel could tell that he was grasping for straws. Sam was right, as well, he mused: the soldier and engineer from her team weren’t in a relationship like them.

“…Y-yeah, well… you an’ Dante were fuckin’  _awful_  at bein’ friends with a li'l extra action on tha side…”, the scout said feebly, and Gabriel raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, well,  _you an’ Billy_ are fuckin’ awful at it too.  What’s that tell ya, huh?”

“Hey! Archie an’ me aren’t fuckin’  _screwin’ around!_  We’re serious!”, Billy protested, and Sam patted both scouts on the back with a broad smile as she elaborated on Gabriel’s statement in a way that made the RED pyro’s heart swell with pride.

“Well, like Gabriel already said: what does that tell you?  …Gabriel and I weren’t 'screwing around’ either, even in the very beginning.  It was meant as a compliment.”

“Yeah, et c'était la  _dernière_ que j’t'ai donné, Archie, salaud, si tu peux pas penser à quelque chose d'autre que foutre ton p'tit amant.”  The scouts looked at Sam for a translation, but she shook her head.

“I… value Gabriel in the condition he is in, so you’re not getting a  _truthful_ translation of that, but suffice to say that the two of you need to respect Dell and Jane.  They’re good men-”

“Even if they don’t got no taste?  Because  _eugh_ , how tha fuck’s Dell get inta bed with Jane with tha lights still  _on?!_ ”, Archie said; Sam meant to react, Gabriel could tell, but rather than have his girlfriend lose her temper with her friend, he decided to defuse the situation with the first comment that came to mind.

“Same way you managed to get into bed with a guy  _twice your fuckin’ age?”_

“Aw,  _jeez,_ Gabe, like we  _needed_ that mental picture!”, Billy said, but the next second, the two scouts snickered and looked over the selection of drinks at the bar, clearly intent on dropping the subject, before opting for the same cocktail Sam was having, something Gabriel didn’t like that combined lemon juice, ginger ale, whisky, herb bitters and two droplets of what looked like water but what the bartender had told him, when Sam had first ordered the cocktail, was the hardest liquor the place had.  To rinse the taste even thinking about the sour, spicy cocktail gave him, Gabriel took a sip of his own glass of vanilla gin, prompting Sam to look at it longingly and causing him to grin as he teased her.

“Shouldn’t have taken that poor fuckin’ excuse for a drink, Sammy, mon ange…  _mmm_ , que ça me goûte… mieux que d'la haute cuisine…”

“Mieux que moi?”, she asked tentatively, and he winked at her.

“…Okay, ya got me there,  _nothing_ tastes better than  _you_ do. Every droplet of vanilla gin in the fuckin’ world is jealous of you, mon ange de feu-”

“Gabriel, I keep having to tell you flattering your way into my room is useless,  _we already share it_ -”, she said, but as always when she had to superfluously point out that his flattery didn’t gain him anything he didn’t already have, she followed it up by a light kiss, somewhat nullifying her own words. Gabriel gladly wanted to react and say that it wasn’t flattery but the honest truth, but then Archie groaned and spoke up loudly next to him.

“ _Yuck_ , Dante, I dunno what’s more gross, you lookin’ at Sam like she’s a cold beer on a hot day, or you sayin’ Sam  _tastes better 'n that shit ya drink_. Just…  _eww_ , man…  I don’t wanna know about that kinda crap!”

“Oh, why don’t you shove a broom handle up your ass,  _p'tit salaud_ , a nice  _thick_ one at that.”, Gabriel reacted somewhat annoyedly – instantly, Billy looked like he’d react to that, and Archie clearly wasn’t going to just take the insult, but again Sam intervened to keep their argument from devolving into a shouting match.

“Guys,  _guys_ , please don’t start abusing each other… Archie, do Gabriel and I say anything if you kiss Billy, or if you look at him like he’s an all-you-can-eat buffet?  Do we make a comment if it’s clear from the way you look that you’ve spent your night misbehaving just as badly as we have?  No, we don’t, and that’s because we value your continued friendship, so  _remember_ that when you feel the need to comment on me and Gabriel.”  She then looked at him again, Gabriel found, her gaze soft and pleading. “…And love, please don’t be riled by them.  They’re great guys and Archie has been a dream at putting up with us chasing him out of his room every other weekend, or with covering for me back when Dell was… being  _headstrong_ … but neither Archie nor Billy deserve to get you to waste energy on them, not when you can conserve that energy and waste it later tonight with me, okay?”  Both scouts groaned at that, Gabriel was happy to see, and they did so again when he pulled her closer.

“If that’s a promise… hell yeah…”  Looking at Archie and Billy, suddenly feeling more than up for their teasing, he added: “Hey, bartender, give these two connards another one of those cocktails, and give me and my fiery angel a glass of vanilla gin.  And tell ya what, treat the rest of the guys to whatever they wanna have too-”

“Gabriel?”, Sam asked, causing him to turn to her with a soft look, which in turn got him to elaborate with a grin.

“You’re right, Sam, mon ange… I shouldn’t waste my breath on Arch an’ Billy, and not on any of the other guys as well… so to show 'em that nothing and no one can make me any less happy than I am, bein’ here together with you and knowin’ we’ll go to  _our_ rooms tonight, I’m buyin’ both of our teams a drink.  And the bartender too, for good measure.”, he added, grinning broadly as he turned to the man: “Hey, Gareth, grab yourself somethin’ nice and refreshing too, ya hear, and put it on my tab!”  The effect was instantaneous: the two scouts, Sam and himself got a small platter of mini-snacks to go along with their drinks, and the rest of the men got their order in record time as well.  All in all, Gabriel mused as the engineers raised their bottles of beer his way and even Jane seemed like he’d buried the remainder of his grudge against Sam, it was a good night, and it looked like it could only get better.

 

“Hhhhth thhh thhh mmmphhhth!”, Sam shouted, airblasting a rocket back to John the next second – behind her, Archie and Tavish ducked into the alcove she’d pointed out before she did the same, running after them and keeping a sharp eye out for any movement.  The two men and she had been testing the RED team’s defenses all morning, alternating between actual offense and providing diversions for Theo to pick off Grant or for Arsène to infiltrate RED.  “Mmm mmmnnn, hhhph thhhssshh khhhhphssssh hhhhph-”

“I hear ya, Sam.  Fuck, I can hardly catch my breath before we gotta run off again!  RED’s defenses are tighter than a fuckin’  _chastity belt_  today…  We gotta hurry-”

“Aye, an’ with good reason…”, Tavish chimed in, pointing at the end of the alcove they’d ducked into with a grin.  There, at the end of the corridor, they could see shadows moving, coming closer, and they quickly ducked behind a stack of barrels in a corner which hid them from view.  The footsteps approaching them grew louder but then slower, until whoever had been coming stood still only a few steps away from them.  Sam couldn’t tell who it was until their voices sounded.

“…Merde, got away  _again_.” Of course it had to be Gabriel who had come for her, she mused, nearly chuckling before she realized that that’d give away their position.  Answering him was Graeme, the RED demoman’s voice somewhat hoarse and shaky.

“Ach, Gaebrial, yoo see her ooft enough outside of battle… ’s nae lost if she got away now…  How’s Grant doin’?”

“Pfeh, he’s doin’ okay.  I torched Arsène ten times in the past hour. Hell, they’re lucky Pierre’s been on defense the past hour – Dell’s toys are layin’ wide open, but our Frenchie’s been under strict orders to just relay their orders to us.”  Archie meant to speak up, and he would’ve if it weren’t for Sam to quickly put a gloved hand across his mouth with little to no sound – the minute creak of the material of her fireproof suit was interpreted by both other men as issuing from Gabriel’s suit.  “…Lucky that’ll end soon.  I saw Pierre run back to John a minute ago, and solly boy looked like he was considering a change of plan…  Oh well…”  Gabriel’s suit creaked again as he pulled on his gas mask, for his next words were muffled: “Shhhmmm hhhhnnnth hhrrrrr shhhh mmmmthshhhh khhmmm phhhhkhh.”

“Aye, laddeh, ’s no use hanging around here.  They probably ran back to th'other side.”  The men ran back off, clearly hoping to catch them in their assault, and after a few seconds of silence, Sam spoke up softly, pulling her gas mask away from her mouth to be able to speak freely.

“…I’ve got to double back to warn Dell and to watch his back… Tav’, Arch’, you probably should head back to the last point, out on the bridge, and keep their assault at bay there, maybe ambush whoever is coming. …I’ll see if I can’t send Siegfried and Yaroslav your way to back you up, they’ll like the change of pace, I’m sure…”, she added before pulling the mask back into place and running down the corridor, ducking down to avoid being detected and subsequently picked off by Chris.  Dell’s 'nest’, as she affectionately named it when he placed his sentry and dispenser on either side of him in a hard-to-reach and easily defensible position, lay right above the alcove leading to their final point, right in front of their respawn room.  How the engineer always found those spots, she didn’t know and it didn’t matter, as long as it  _worked_.

“Thhhmmm! Phrrrrr hhhshh khmmnnnn…”, she spoke loudly as she approached the engineer from behind, dousing his equipment in flames – she’d expected a lot to happen, but  _not_ for the  _engineer_ to suddenly burst into flames and sag to the ground in a smouldering heap with only a groan.  “Vhmmmth thmmm…?”, she whispered in surprise; when she noticed that the equipment hadn’t been touched, she realized what the idea had been and groaned out a hearty 'phmmmkh’.  The RED team had _known_ she, Tavish and Archie had been there, testing their defenses, and they’d wanted her to go back, either to get her out of the way or to allow Pierre to backstab her the moment she’d relaxed her defenses again. Quickly, she reasoned which options she had and decided on the most radical and dangerous of the bunch: jumping down, she ran to the respawn room, where Dell just exited along with Arsène, who had evidently been caught again.

“Sammy, Pierre-”, the engineer started, only for Sam to lift off her gas mask and nod.

“Torched him.  Your equipment’s still intact.  They just wanted me to stop going on the offensive.  Arsène, do you want to give them a little surprise that’ll upset their defenses?”

“Naturellement, but 'ow will we do dees?” _,_ he asked, listening intently when Sam quickly outlined her plan, grinning more and more each passing second until his cheeks had to hurt from the strain, at which point he nodded eagerly.  “Dat ees zee sound plan, Samantha, mon amie.  Let us go and confuse zee RED team… but you weel owe me for zat last part-”

“Like you’ve never distracted Gabriel that way before – just like Pierre tried to distract me similarly a couple of times.  All’s fair in battle, mon cher ami.  And don’t tell me you won’t enjoy every last second of it, he’s like a fever…  Now…”, she said, pulling her gas mask back in place.  By the time she looked up again, she’d acquired an exact double, down to the foot they put forward first. “Rhhmmmmphrrrr, hhmm khmmm mmmphth, thmmm Khmmmphrrrrmmm, hmmth hmm khmm rrrmmkhth, thmmm Khrrrmmnth.”   Her doppelganger nodded solemnly before ducking into the corridor she’d come from before, allowing her to duck to the right.  It was satisfying to hear Chris’ startled shout from overhead - “ _Bloody oath_ , there’s  _two of 'er_!” - but even more satisfying when she found Grant putting the toolbox containing his sentry down, watching it build  _with his back turned to her obliviously_. Chuckling silently, she let her flamethrower roar to life, ending the engineer’s life as well as that of his still-building machine in a spurt of burning gasoline.  His dispenser underwent a similar fate when she found it standing near the hallway to their final point. She ran into Archie and Tavish there, who both looked at her as if she’d grown an extra head before reaching for their guns and walking up to her in suspicion, causing her to shake her head and pull her mask off.

“It’s me, it’s me – Archie, you took those pictures I gave to Gabriel, you know how I said that you could take two copies only if both of them went to Gabriel or if you burnt the spare copy-”  Instantly, the scout relaxed and motioned for Tavish to lower his weapon likewise.

“Okay, unless Pierre was in our room back then, it’s you, but… then who’s  _eatin’ Dante’s face off_?”

“That would be Arsène-”, Sam said, and when she meant to add 'and I owe him a big bunch of flowers if he backstabs Gabriel right now’, a muffled cry sounded from the hallway and a second or two later Arsène stepped towards them, straightening his tie again.

“…Do not look so surprised, 'e weel be back een a few seconds, we must move fast to support zee assault.”  Right on cue, Yaroslav’s minigun started firing around the bend, and they could hear Siegfried’s victorious laughter join in the din, at which point they raced to join the heavy and medic as they advanced unimpeded towards the last control point of RED.  With their combined efforts, the point was captured just as the doors of the respawn room opened and Grant and Gabriel both ran out holding their shotguns.  Instantly when the horn sounded, both men groaned and dropped their weapons, raising their hands.

“…Merde, Arsène, t’m'as… j'me sens violé.  I feel  _violated_ , man, I thought ya were Sam!”, Gabriel said, and Grant groaned again.

“ _Aw hell_ , so much fer John’s plan t'git Sam outta the way…”

“Oh, it was John’s plan, huh?  I’ll remember that… the next crit rocket he fires is being airblasted right up his arse…  But Arsène did nothing that Pierre didn’t do to me once or twice, and he  _did it on my say-so,_ mon amour.”  Whatever her boyfriend had been expecting her to say in reply, that  _she_ had okayed the spy’s actions clearly wasn’t it; however, before she could speak further, Arsène loaded his gun carefully and motioned for the pyro.

“Do you wish to 'ave zee 'onneurs, Sam, mon amie, or do you want me to shoot 'im?”

“Oh, he is all mine now…”, she said, grinning broadly as she reached around the RED pyro, grabbing his Axtinguisher.  “…Don’t worry, mon amour, it’ll be quick.”

“ _Oh merde…_ would pleading get me mercy?”, he asked carefully, eyeing his bloodstained weapon with unveiled fear.   When no answer came, he muttered: “…I’m guessing that’s a-”  Mid-sentence, Sam swung the surprisingly heavy axe horizontally, neatly decapitating her lover and causing blood to spray from his neck, misting the front of her fireproof suit with a light layer of red.  Then, just as Gabriel’s head rolled to a halt in front of Grant’s feet, the pyro’s six-foot body keeled over sideways and Sam dropped the weapon on top of it, where it vanished just like the rest of her boyfriend’s remains and possessions, the respawn system picking him up without a hitch.  The next second, a dull 'bang’ sounded and Grant hit the dusty soil, his hardhat blasted a short distance away and clattering against the metal doorway of RED’s respawn room.  Sam looked somewhat mournfully at the blood that still rolled off her suit in thick, syrupy droplets, sighing softly before shaking her head and looking back at the corridor that’d lead herself and her teammates back to their side.

“Come on, let’s head back.”, she said, leading the way, her footprints in the dust accompanied by a trail of droplets of blood.  The others followed a few steps behind her, save for Archie and Arsène, who hurried a little faster to catch up with her.

“…Maybe ya wanna stay on defense in tha next round, Sam, 'cause  _that was fuckin’ brutal_ , man, the way ya killed Dante!”

“I agree, eet ees per'aps de la prudence… prudent… for you to stay be'ind our lines dis next round, oui…”, the spy said, prompting a sigh from Sam.

“Do you think I went overboard?”

“No, Sam, ya did exactly like he would'a done!  …But I’m just sayin’, nobody gets that  _bloody an’ cruel_ like Dante does-”

“Well, maybe it was about time someone dethroned our 'King of the Barb-Wired Hill’, huh?”, Sam said, and both the scout and spy chuckled, pulling her along while regaling her with tales of Gabriel’s most gruesome battle acts.

 

Gabriel caught himself laying in the dark, quiet hours of the night on Wednesday – or, he supposed, it could already be Thursday for all he knew, since the room didn’t have any windows and it was too dark for him to read his watch – staring at the ceiling, thinking of nothing in particular but not sleeping.  His body was awake, there was no other way to put it: his mind felt numb and distant, his thoughts sluggish at best, but his body felt energized and clearly it wanted to get out of the bed and into the brand new day, despite it being so early not even the birds tweeted yet.  Faintly, from the hallway beyond their living room, he could hear sounds – the slow drip of a leak in the bathroom on the other side, the sound of rustling dry leaves or plastic in the wind outside, the occasional muffled snore from the men sleeping soundly in their own rooms, far away from the little cocoon of safety he and Sam had built for themselves… and he caught himself musing that, if the sound of a snore could penetrate the soundproofed room, it had to be someone snoring loud enough to wake up the rest of the men.  Biting his lip to hold back a chuckle, he realized that he wasn’t falling asleep any time soon, and that posed a problem.

Of course, he knew that it was a side effect of his new and improved med regimen – when he’d first started, he’d had moments where he could hardly sleep as well, right alongside moments where he fell asleep whenever he sat anywhere longer than one minute.  Back then, it’d been no concern, since he’d been in prison and he didn’t have a lot of activities to busy himself with but go to therapy, lay on his bed and sleep, or get into trouble with some of the other inmates; but now, with his job and his duties to the teams – and with  _Sam –_  it was reason enough for him to feel like he needed to do something to work his way through the adverse effects.  He got up, gently lifting Sam’s arm off his shoulder – the resulting groan his girlfriend uttered made his heart ache with the rush of love for her that seemed to come over him whenever she showed that his place was beside her and nowhere else – before moving out of the bed and quickly tiptoeing to their living room, where he quickly scribbled a note by the light of their floor lamp, since he didn’t dare turn on any other light out of fear for waking her up.  He hated leaving her to wake up alone, but if he didn’t sleep, he’d perform abysmally in battle and that wouldn’t do at all.

“'Couldn’t sleep, went to see if doc Hartmann can help, be back for breakfast with you mon ange’ – sounds about right…”, he muttered, looking himself over to see if he looked remotely presentable, after which he quietly crept outside, into the hallway, and then on over to the RED side of the compound, where the rumbling snores grew louder. 'Probably Radovan…’, he mused as the snored grew louder the closer he came to the room the heavy shared with their medic, to the point where he worried whether the doctor would even hear him knock on their door.

“…Doc? R-rudolf?  It’s Gabriel…”, he muttered after three sharp raps on the door – the only answer he got, however, was more of the rumbling snores, so he repeated his actions.  “Doc?  Doctor, c'mon…”

“Vas ist los?”, came a somewhat annoyed grumble from behind him; turning around, Gabriel spotted his team’s medic stand in the doorway to the medbay looking like he hadn’t slept a wink either.  The moment the man saw him, his expression of grumpy, sleep-deprived annoyance lifted in favor of a somewhat dumbfounded look.  “Herr Dantan? Vhat brings you here in zhe mittel of zhe night?”

“Couldn’t sleep… I kept layin’ awake in my bed.  It’s a side effect of my med decrease, I know that it is, but if I don’t catch at least a little shut-eye tonight, I’ll be worth fuck-all in battle tomorrow morning-”

“Vell, yes, und ve can’t have zhat… okay, I von’t give you zhe sedative or you’d sleep until zhe afternoon, but perhaps zhe Kamillentee vould do you good…”

“An’ you, too, doc, ya look like you’ve been run over by a couple of freight trains.”, Gabriel said, his voice devoid of it usual teasing note though his words had that intention, and the medic clearly understood that even if he didn’t laugh.

“Zhere is only one freight train zhat has hit me, und seine Name ist Radovan.  …But you’re right, perhaps zhe Kamillentee vould help me zleep as vell.  Come, zit vizh me in zhe kitchen.”  Gabriel meekly followed the medic into the door next to where they’d been standing, which led them to the dining room which looked somewhat alien in the middle of the night – or perhaps, he mused, it looked alien to him now because it was no longer  _his_ dining room.  A million memories resurfaced all at once – all of the times he’d cooked and carried his food inside, all of the times he’d made caramel sauce to assuage the gnawing unease in his heart or to lift his spirits, the times he’d gotten so drunk that he couldn’t even lift his head from the table anymore, and thousands of other things that had befallen him in that dining room – causing him to sigh loud enough for the medic to hear.  “…Zhe heavy zhoughts?”

“No, not  _heavy_ thoughts, just… c'est étonnant, la vitesse avec laquelle mes chambres à moi et Sammy sont devenues notre coin sûr…” Another sigh followed, this one lighter and accompanied by a smile as the pyro elaborated: “…This is… well, it’s still my base, but it’s no longer my  _place_ , ya know?  I have a lot of memories here – good ones, a lot of bad ones, and a million more so-so ones.  I can still see myself carryin’ in that last pot of stringbeans and telling all of you guys that that’s all she wrote – that I was gonna be livin’ with and cookin’ for Sammy alone from now on.  Sammy’s my  _home_. She’s all I’ll ever need in life, Rudolf, j'te jure.  Wherever she is, if I’m not there, I’m no further than three steps away.”  The medic nodded, a half-smile on his weary face.

“She ist a very remarkable voman, zhat much is zertain…   Ach, warte – you can still talk, Gabriel, aber I haff got to make zhe tea or ve vill not get zhe zleep ve need.”, the medic said softly as he rose from his chair, causing Gabriel to nod and sit in silence for about three seconds before speaking again, his voice soft and reverent.

“Elle est une femme très unique.  Sammy, I mean – she’s one-of-a-kind. I… well, ya know I got bad sometimes…”

“Better zhen most, ja.”, the doctor admitted, his tone half-stern and half-soothing.  “Vhen you burnt your hands… I ztill dream of zhat from time to time, of zhe skin literally peeling off under meine Fingerspitzen… aber continue.”, he added, poking his head around the corner again.  Gabriel nodded and spoke on, feeling an odd liberation as he did so.

“Well, sometimes I used to think God let me live on in misery 'cause he wanted me to pay for all the hurt I caused.  Ma mère… Mon père et ma chère soeur – I let them down by bein’ weak.  Mes amis et collègues d'ma vie passée… I let everyone in my life down.  And you guys, too.  Billy first an’ foremost.  I stepped out on him every fuckin’ chance I got, I drank myself stupid half of the time and was startin’ fires the other half.  I… j'étais un homme à l'bord d'une précipice.  A man at the edge of a long, dark drop.” Suddenly, he remembered Sam, and how she’d spoken of her brother, how she’d shown him his last letter to her with tears freely flowing over her face, and he sighed: “…Sammy understands that.  Hell, her brother… il était un homme au bord d'une précipice aussi… only  _he_ had the guts, or the stupidity, or  _whatever the hell it was_ that made him  _jump off_. I… I always thought I was too much of a coward to even end it like I should.”

“Gabriel…”, the doctor said, his tone sympathetic and at the same time edgy, as a kind of warning, and the pyro nodded to show he understood.

“…But then… then  _she_ came along.  She drank with me that first weekend and it was…  I felt like she’d shot me up with adrenalin and woke me up from a long, dark night’s sleep.   _Nothin’_ had ever felt like that.  Not Billy an’ me being together, not drinkin’ myself to oblivion… not even lightin’ a fire felt like it felt to stand beside her.  I hadn’t known how tense I was until her.”  The doctor walked back into the dining room with two mugs with chamomile tea, handing one to him and putting the other one down at the seat next to him before doubling back for sugar.  Taking one sip of the steaming hot liquid, Gabriel winced at the scalding heat of it and put the mug down as he talked on: “…She made me feel alive, an’ safe… and she made me feel like I wasn’t a coward for not endin’ it after all.  She made me realize that God still has a fuckin’  _plan_ for me after all, an’ that that plan might not involve me being condamned to l'enfer after all.  …Ya know I call her 'mon ange’, right?”, he asked, and Rudolf chuckled from the kitchen.

“I zhink zhere is no one left on both zhe teams zhat doesn’t know zhat, Gabriel.”

“Well, the  _reason_ why I call her that is 'cause I used to pray for an angel to be sent to me to make me walk the right path again… and then she came an’ look at me walking.”

“You haff changed, yes, und zhat  _is_ zhanks to her… but  _she_ did not change you, mein Freund.”  Looking up from his mug again, Gabriel saw Rudolf stir his own tea with a serene expression, which lingered as the man elaborated: “She vos merely zhe push in zhe right direczhion you needed to change yourzelf.  She gave you zhe reason for zhe change, und zhe reward for it as well.”  Gabriel couldn’t argue with that: he knew it was true that no external force could make him change his previous sinful ways, that only  _he himself_ could do that.  But it was true that Sam had set the process in motion with as little as a light touch and a warm smile, and it had grown like wildfire.

“…Le seul feu que j'veux dans ma vie maintenant, c'est le sien…”  He drunk another sip of his chamomile tea, finding it had cooled sufficiently for him to drink it, which he did gladly before admitting to the medic: “…She didn’t change me that way, no, but she somehow dug up qualities inside of me that I’d forgotten.  La merde, la malheur et mes methodes d'l'oublier m'ont pris tout – ou j'ai pensé comme ça depuis trop longtemps.  I’d forgotten a lot more than my fuckin’ misery.  She brought it all back: my hopes, my dreams of a better life, my thirst for knowledge and my deep love for chemistry…  She changed my  _heart_  – all the rest of the changes are all me, but she’s the soul of each and every one of 'em.”  He stretched, feeling his body suddenly wind down again, the energy dissipating like fog in the sunlight; opposite him, the medic reacted similarly, causing Gabriel to get up and speak softly.  “…Thanks for the tea.”

“Ach, das war nichts, Gabriel – zhat vos nuzhing.  I haff enjoyed zhe  _candid_ talk vizh you.  Go back to deine Engel-”  There, a loud yawn interrupted the doctor’s words, after which he just smiled at Gabriel, who returned the favor before setting back off towards his and Sam’s room.  As soon as he lay in the bed again, his fellow pyro wrapped her arm back around his upper body, her hand coming to rest as if by coincidence on his heart; but Gabriel mused, as he fell asleep almost instantly when his head hit the pillow, that he no longer believed in coincidences when it came to Sam and him.


	30. What is it I can't remember (made my being so much better)

“So, uh, what do we need?”, Sam asked, pulling her coat a little more tightly around herself as a gust of wind blew and pulled at the item of clothing, causing her to shiver slightly and Gabriel to pull her a little closer, even though that was difficult due to the heavy winter coat he wore himself.  Still, the gesture did make a little added warmth erupt inside of her and she smiled her boyfriend’s way gladly.

“Uh, let’s see… one li'l box of carrots, three cartons of milk… two more packets of cream… an’ then there’s three chickens, onions, minced meat, dark chocolate, eggs,  _more_ milk an’ cream-”

“Wait, hold on, back up… why do we need  _three_ chickens?”, Sam asked, blinking as Gabriel looked at her in utter surprise, as if she’d forgotten something vital.

“T'fais rigole, mon ange… ya didn’t forget, right?”  His voice had that amused tinge in it, though his eyes told a different story, betraying slight apprehension as well as the lightest annoyance – it was that last quality that made her realize what she’d forgotten, prompting her to mutter a soft but heartfelt curse.

“Oh  _crap_ , Thanksgiving, that’s  _this week_ … Well, thank you for reminding me, Gabriel, mon ange-”

“You  _did_ forget… heh, n'importe, ya remembered.  Otherwise it would’ve been fuckin’  _awful_ for the guys, gettin’ no food when they’re expectin’ to get fed.  ’s It still just Theo, Chris, Rudolf, Radovan an’ Graeme we’re cookin’ for?”, he asked, and she nodded, already expecting Gabriel’s additional remark before he spoke it: “An’ we didn’t promise them anything other than just a meal an’ dessert, right?”

“What else could we possibly have promised them, Gabriel?”, she asked somewhat surprisedly, causing her boyfriend to snort and shrug.

“Hell if I know, but I just wanna know they won’t look at us like we’re killin’ their grandmothers right under their goddamn noses if we walk away after havin’ eaten with ‘em.  I don’t know about you, but I think of our rooms as  _our home_ now, and I don’t have any intention of stayin’ over at RED side-”

“BLU side, Gabriel, Rudolf and Radovan said they’d prefer eating over at my team’s side of the base.  And I know, I don’t have any intention of staying there either.  Still, we might  _have_ to, for the sake of our teammates – if Rudolf and Radovan want some company, or if Chris and Theo and Graeme need-”

“Whatever Chris, Theo or Graeme  _need_ , they can look for it someplace  _else_ … After we’re done cookin’ for them, I’m taking up your evening, et j'veux que personne pense autre chose…”, Gabriel ground out, though he sighed the next second and looked over the list again. “…Oh, an’ I thought maybe the guys would like a little nice somethin’ with their dinner, so I wrote down rosato, see if they got somethin’ good at this shitty supermarket.”

“Rosé?”, Sam asked, surprised by Gabriel’s choice in wine; though her boyfriend’s eager nod and the explanation he launched in showed that he was more than certain with his choice.

“Oui, bien sûr… d'la rosé s'accorde parfaitement avec un diner de poulet rôti avec des carottes braisées  _et_ avec un dessert d'la mousse au chocolat.  Rosé is the kind of wine that fits perfectly with almost fuckin’  _everything_ , so yeah.  …Donc, t'as quelque chose d'autre que t'veux acheter, mon ange?”

“Vanilla-scented candles.”, she admitted, smiling at Gabriel as he looked at her in confusion.  “I happen to like the scent of vanilla, and candles make things a little… I don’t know, a little homelier… and I kind of find the weather very gloomy nowadays-”

“Yeah, sure, the weather at the end of November’s fuckin’ depressing all on its own… but  _scented candles…_ I don’t know if I can handle that, mon ange…”  His smile was warm but his eyes sparkled with mirth, showing her that he didn’t mean his words as seriously as she might’ve interpreted them, causing her to roll her eyes and wrap one arm around her boyfriend’s torso, pulling him close enough for her to speak softly but clearly.

“Come on, now, love, don’t you want my mood to be light and sunny… and  _playful_?” The latter word was accompanied by a gentle nudge of his side with her fingertips, and instantly, her fellow pyro perked up and grinned, nodding vigorously.

“Heh, mais oui, naturellement!  Vanilla-scented candles are  _on_ the list… donc, quelque chose d'autre?  Some more wine just for the two of us?”  Sam grinned and shrugged, musing whether having wine would be nice.  However, the next second, Gabriel amended his statement: “J'sais!  Why don’t I buy us some fancy breakfast?  Croissants, fruit jelly, some  _decent_ coffee instead of the  _absolute crap_ they drink on base…”  The thought of Gabriel and her sitting at their dinnertable, eating a lavish breakfast, made Sam smile broadly almost instantly, and as such it wasn’t long before she agreed with his idea.

“That sounds great, mon amour – after a great dinner together with the guys, I think I’d enjoy a perfect breakfast with just you. …Rudolf’ll have no problems cooking the guys breakfast all by his lonesome then?”, she asked tentatively, doing so more to be absolutely certain that they wouldn’t be interrupted than out of actual worry for the rest of the men, and Gabriel nodded.

“Of course, pas d'problème – he  _loves_ to cook.  The guys like his food, too, so…”  Then, however, her boyfriend looked at the shopping list a little pensively again and sighed.  “…Mon ange, j'me sens… un peu perdu tout à coup.” Instantly, Sam pulled him into her tightly, not needing to stand on tiptoe to place a soft kiss on his cheek because of how he let his shoulders hang.

“Pourquoi? What’s making you feel lost?”, she asked, and he sighed.

“This is the first time a holiday’s felt like a holiday again.  I’d… forgotten what it feels like.  Et ça me rappelle de ma vie passé… long passé, c'est à dire.  Quand j'étais encore en Vancouver et j'avais encore mon boulot chez Rocher LaVie.  Quand j'avais pas des problèmes.  Et maintenant… j'ai assez d'problèmes.  I’ve got nothin’  _but_ problems now.  J'me sens un peu merdé par la vie de nouveau.”  He paused for a second, looking at her a little helplessly, in the same way as he’d first looked at her – a vulnerable, open look that made Sam’s heart ache for his plight and that got her to nearly speak up and reassure her boyfriend, only to get cut off by him: “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I fuckin’  _love and worship_ you, Sammy, and you’re the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me in my life, but… tout à coup, il me manque un tas d'choses que j'ai perdu…  I miss my previous job, an’ my previous life.  Because it was easier.  I didn’t have the… ce merde foiré d'la pyromanie…” Sam had been worried before, but when he mentioned the pyromania, it all fell into perspective again.  Nodding softly, she moved to grab her boyfriend’s hand and entwine their fingers while she spoke to him in a soft, soothing and understanding tone.

“…Gabriel, mon amour, missing your previous life is normal, and so’s wishing you didn’t have to carry the burden that you carry.  It’s  _natural_  to feel like life dealt you a god-awful hand because it’s the  _truth_. I mean, just look at my life, back when we first met: I was burnt from head to toe, looking like some kind of  _thing_ -”

“You looked beautiful, mon ange!”, Gabriel protested, and Sam smiled gratefully before continuing.

“-and I lost my brother to  _suicide_. The brother that I’d basically devoted my  _life_ to keeping safe.  I would’ve died for him, I nearly  _did_ die for him… that does things to a person, things that run deep and that barely heal over time.  Back in the beginning, especially on days where the pain was too strong for the analgesics to counter, I even caught myself wishing  _I_ had died instead of  _him_. And sometimes I still miss him, like a bleeding wound in my heart. Grief over the past is… it heals, but sometimes something happens to put stress on it, and all of the old wounds open up just a little again and bleed.  Just don’t… don’t let it take away from that great feeling you have.  Don’t let the past ruin the future, okay? Your life was better in the past than it is now, and you feel like crap… but don’t let it get you down, don’t let it stop you fighting for a better future for yourself.  Use that awful feeling to make tomorrow brighter.”  Gabriel nodded, slowly and hesitantly at first, but then more and more determinedly until he was back to a half-smile.

“You… got a point.  J'vais pas nous faire une belle vie par vivre dans le passé.  My mom wouldn’t want me to do that…”  Like always when he mentioned his mother, Gabriel brought the hand that wasn’t holding hers to his left upper arm, fingers gently rubbing the place where his tattoo sat: Sam knew that it was his way of paying tribute to the woman that had seen him through the first quarter of his life. However, she felt like reaching out and putting her other hand over his.  “Sammy?”, Gabriel remarked, looking and sounding surprised, which prompted her to smile broadly.

“Your past, you cannot change.  You carry it with you, under your skin; it makes you who you are right now.  And whether you let it decide who you’re going to be tomorrow is up to you.  …But I think your mum watches from up there and  _smiles_ right now, because you’ve found someone just like her, someone that loves you and stands by you no matter who you are tomorrow and no matter who you were yesterday.  The pyromania, the sleeping around, the drinking, the cursing, the loneliness… all of that doesn’t matter to your mum.  She sees the heart of you.  And so do I.  I see more than the trouble: I see the warmth, the affection, the dedication and the passion you’ve got to give.  Ton passé n'importe pas pour moi, mon amour, c'est ton futur qui m'intéresse, parce que je veux le partager avec toi-”  She meant to speak even further and tell him that she wouldn’t leave him, but Gabriel seemed to not need it said as much as he needed to kiss her in the middle of a busy parking lot, causing heads to turn their way.  Yet to Sam, all that mattered was the way he looked down at her as they parted again: his eyes were filled with that tender warmth that made her soul ache with the intensity of happiness it brought her, and his hands rested lightly on her upper arms.

“Samantha Tennant, you’re fuckin’ perfect and I am  _never_ going to let you go again.  Je t'aime, mon ange, plus qu'j'peux dire. …Now, come on, let’s get shopping, then we can go back home all the sooner.  J'veux t'embrasser quelque part ou on n'a pas besoin de ces pardessus et pulls gros….”  Smiling, Sam nodded, walking inside the store alongside her boyfriend, agreeing wholeheartedly with his sentiment.

 

“…Gabriel, son, might ah borrow yeh fer a sec?”  Looking up from his scales, he noticed Grant standing in the doorway to the apothecary, seemingly having stood there for longer than a few seconds judging by the way he leaned against the doorframe.  Sighing, the engineer shook his head, though he no longer sounded annoyed when he spoke again: “…Dante, yeh sure y'ain’t gotta wear a mouth mask or somethin’? Y'seem a li'l outta sorts-”

“Well,  _of course_ I seem a little out of sorts, vieux, this is fuckin’  _hard work_! If my measurements are just a fraction of a  _pinch_ off, this goes from bein’ medicine to bein’ goddamn poison!  So yeah, excuse me for bein’ fuckin’ precise and thorough – an’, by the way,  _excuse me for lovin’ this damn assignment so much I forget about meaningless things like listening if I get intruders_. J'aime ce boulot de plus en plus chaque jour.”  Grinning as the engineer softly muttered a sentence that Gabriel didn’t quite understand but took for an apology just to be safe, he took a step closer to the man to allow him to speak his mind.

“…Yeah, well, ’s about this week’s holiday, pardner.  Jus’ wanted t'ask yeh if'n yeh hadn’t forgotten-”

“Course not, Grant, mon ami.  Sammy an’ I did our shopping this weekend – the guys are gettin’ stuffed chicken with braised carrots and pommes duchesse.  An’ wine, since it’s supposed to be a _fancy_ dinner for once.  Oh, and for dessert, chocolate mousse.”  The engineer grinned broadly, rolling his eyes.

“Well, yew an’ yer li'l lady sure are gon’ spoil them guys.  Y'even make me a li'l jealous, pardner.  What’s th'reason that yeh’re pamperin’ Rudolf, Rado’, Graeme an’ Chris?  A-and, uh, Theo?”, the engineer added as an afterthought of sorts, showing that he hadn’t been thinking of the one member of Sam’s team apart from the pyro herself that would stay on base, something the pyro found himself rolling his eyes about.

“Rien d'extraordinaire…just… I wanted to make somethin’ good for Sammy, seein’ as she’s never had a Thanksgivin’ dinner.  Need to show her what she’s been missin’.”  However, Gabriel mused, looking quietly past the engineer and into the medbay, that was only half the reason. The other half was that he wanted to pamper  _himself_ as well.  Thanksgiving had always been the celebration of family, something he hadn’t observed anymore in over ten years simply because it had hurt too much.  At first, there was the death of his mother hanging over him like a dark cloud, sapping all happiness out of the celebrations he’d normally so enjoyed, not to mention his pyromania had made him shy away from his father and sister; after he’d ran, of course, he didn’t have any family to observe the holiday with, and he’d refused to take part in the celebrations in Chicago and later on the base.  Billy had invited him to go home with him the previous year, but he hadn’t done so because he’d felt it wouldn’t be the same.  It had felt like he’d sit in on someone else’s celebration, leeching on someone else’s happiness, and he’d declined the offer much to the distaste of Billy and the confusion of everyone else on his team.

“…Son, yeh’ve got tha’ broodin’ look on yer face 'gain… what’s got yeh worried?”, Grant asked, showing Gabriel that he hadn’t been as effective as he’d wanted to be in hiding his somewhat moody thoughts. The pyro sighed and shrugged.

“C'est rien-”

“Yeah, ah’ll b'lieve tha’ when yeh don’t look like someone tha’ just woke up from a dark nightmare, Dante, pardner.  Now, tell me – y'kin trust me.”, he said – his voice was sympathetic and just the right amount of caring, and Gabriel found himself nodding and leaning against one of the cupboards next to the door as he spoke.

“…It’s not just Sammy that’s had to miss a proper Thanksgivin’.  I… j'ai plus fêté ce jour les onze ans passés.”

“'Cause'a yer mom?”, Grant asked carefully – Gabriel didn’t voice his agreement but nodded carefully.

“At first, it was just… my mom wasn’t there anymore.  Usually, me an’ my sister celebrated with her, so when my dad invited us it was… it felt like betraying her memory, you know?  And, of course, the year after I  _did_ wanna, but the pyromania was too strong and I didn’t trust myself in his house, so I found a crappy excuse again.  Year after that, I was… dans l'hôpital…  Year after  _that_ , I was in  _prison_ in Chicago… and then I was here, and you guys have the worst fuckin’ track record when it comes to Thanksgiving, bunch of sorry  _crétins_ …”

“Y'ain’t went 'long tuh Billy’s fer Thanksgivin’, neither-”, Grant started, only to get cut off by Gabriel somewhat impatiently.

“Yeah, 'cause I felt like I didn’t have a place in his happy family.  He, his mom an’ his baby sister, they’re… they’ve been through a lot of crap in the past.  I mean, Billy  _told_ me why he had to leave home-”  The tale hadn’t been a happy one, and Grant scowled as he looked at his feet – the engineer had clearly been one of the privileged ones that Billy had shared with as well. However, the mention of what the scout had been through was merely a means to an end to Gabriel at that moment, and he quickly continued in a softer, more subdued tone: “…Anyway, after all Billy, his mom an’ his sister went through, they closed ranks.  I was  _flattered_ by Billy’s invitation, but I had no place there.  Woulda felt out of sorts all the damn evening, and that’s hardly a 'celebration’ then. …But now, with Sam, I’ve been lookin’ forward to it, can you believe it?  She’s made me feel like I’ve got somethin’ to be thankful for again.  Elle m'a donné d'nouveau de l'envie pour faire part de quelque chose si… si  _joyeux_ et _spéciale_ comme un jour férier.  Because it wasn’t just Thanksgiving that I haven’t fuckin’ celebrated properly in years – Christmas an’ New Year’s, too.  Oh,  _merde_ ,  _especially_ New Year’s – all the fireworks, I was too damn afraid it’d set me off, give me  _des idées idiotes_ …” Grant shook his head softly and then reached over to pat Gabriel on the back, a warm smile gracing his features.

“Son, ah never thought much 'bout how gloomy y'always were, but… lately, ah’ve been gittin’ t'know yeh better 'n better, an’ ah’ve gotta admit yew got plenty 'f reasons fer bein’ gloomy.  If'n ah wouldn’t'a had the joy 'f celebratin’ with mah fam'ly… hell, ah’d go off the deep end.  Yeh’ve got a strong character, Gabriel, pardner, tuh  _bear_ what yeh bear without cryin’ half 'f the time.”  Gabriel nodded once, to show he accepted the compliment, but he had to react, the comment too strongly pushing itself forward for him to hold it back.

“Ouais, donc… instead of crying, I had, uh,  _other_ outlets for my pain.”  Grant rolled his eyes at that, looking for a second a little like his father had back in the beginning of his treatment: stern and filled with a willpower that he so sorely lacked, but at the same time warm and somewhat helpless.

“Gabriel, pardner… y'ain’t gonna tell me them outlets were nuthin’ but  _gawd-awful_ at takin’ away yer misery.  …Anyway…”, the engineer then said, his tone of voice suddenly airy – Gabriel had to admit that the conversation taking such a serious turn wasn’t what he’d been aiming for either – while he pushed himself away from the doorframe so he merely stood in the doorway, “…ah’m gon’ leave yeh to yer work. …What’re yeh makin’ there, anyway, son?”

“Painkillers.  _Special_ ones, accordin’ to a recipe that Siegfried gave me, for migraines.  Gotta take care or they’ll make it  _worse_ instead of  _better_.” Grinning, Gabriel added: “Still, if I fuck up, Siegfried isn’t gonna come after me, they’re for  _his_ migraines – can’t run if your head feels like it’ll explode.”  The engineer rolled his eyes again but didn’t speak up, merely waving his hand and walking off, leaving Gabriel to walk back to his scales to measure out another tiny scoop of the active ingredient he’d been adding to the mix, focused fully on the task at hand again.

 

“Okay…” Gabriel’s tone bordered on murderous, something Sam could hardly blame him for since three of the five men in the dining room were clearly focused on giving him hell, “…the next of you three  _sorry salopards foirés_ that speaks another  _word_  is gonna wake up with a flare lodged so far up their ass they’ll be  _glowing in the dark for weeks_ , t'as compris?!  If ya won’t do it for me, then do it for _Sam_ , she doesn’t deserve to be treated like crap all the fuckin’ evening.”

“Oi’m not treatin’ Sam like crap-”, Chris answered, his tone indicative of his grin, and before Gabriel reacted, Sam found herself putting her wooden spoon down again and move to the doorway to voice what her boyfriend undoubtedly intended to prove with a punch or two aimed at his team’s sniper.

“Chris, when you treat  _Gabriel_ like crap, you’re treating  _me_ like crap.  Now, the three of you had better behave or you’re thrown out of here – nevermind me and Gabriel, I think Radovan’s had just about enough as well, right?”, she asked, looking at the bulky Russian, who nodded and cracked his fists ominously.

“Little BLU pyro is right – Chris, Theo and Graeme behave like tiny babies, then we treat like tiny babies, put them in hallway to cry some more. Then Radovan, doktor, Gavriel and little BLU Sam enjoy delicious food and wine and tiny babies get  _empty stomach_.” If Gabriel and her hadn’t been making an impression on the three unruly men, the threat the heavy made certainly did the trick: Chris stammered an apology, Graeme turned a shade paler than he already was, and Theo looked like he’d been hit in the face by Chris’ Jarate. “I think tiny baby men will behave, Gavriel.”

“Good…”, Gabriel ground out, stomping back towards the kitchen and causing Sam to follow him.  Only once they were in the kitchen did her fellow pyro relax, she noticed, causing her to walk over to him and give him a quick kiss on his cheek as he tended to the pommes duchesse again.

“Laisse-les, mon amour, all they want is to rile you so you’ll spend your attention on  _them_ instead of _me_.”, she remarked – truthfully so, because the only reason why Chris had made the initial comment, which had also been the lewdest of the bunch, was that she and Gabriel had been so absorbed in making the stuffing for the chickens that they had stopped talking to the men inside like they’d done while peeling the potatoes and the carrots. “They were just feeling a little neglected, that’s all…”

“Yeah, well,  _fuck them_. To me, this is about you an’ me, enjoying this holiday together. The only reason why I offered to cook for the five of 'em is that I felt  _sorry_ for 'em – and believe me, next time they can  _cook for themselves,_ bunch of  _connards foutus-_ ”

“I hope you vere not referring to me und Radovan, herr Dantan?”, came the soft remark from the doorway: when Sam looked up, she saw Rudolf Hartmann stand there, looking at them with an uncharacteristic smile, showing he already knew the answer before Gabriel spoke up again. Sam was no longer surprised to find her boyfriend answer his team’s medic with a soft grin.

“No, you an’ Rado’ are okay, Rudolf.  In fact, the two of you would get my fine cuisine without even a comment, mon ami.  Vous deux sont notres amis.  Rado’s help buildin’ our bed was fuckin’ great – I never imagined I’d have so much joy makin’ something as stupid as a  _bed! -_ an’ you… well, let’s just say you’ve been nothin’ but professional to me in the past, sometimes even downright kind an’ friendly.  I was only too absorbed in my fuckin’ misery to properly appreciate it…”

“Ach, herr Dantan… Gabriel…”, Rudolf said as he walked over, surprising Sam by calling her boyfriend by his first name, “…zhat is natural.  I haff heard vhot fraülein Tennant dizcuzhed vizh Grant und I haff to agree vizh her.  Ve – zhat iz to say, our team und zhe BLU team – haff treated you vizh… Verachtung.  Und zhat ist wrong.  Zhe pyromania ist… vell, it  _vos_ , anyvay… out of your control.  Und zhe rest, zhe häufigem Partnerwechsel, zhe Alkoholismus, zhe dauernd fluchen… zhey vere your attempts at regaining zhe control, zhey vere  _not_ you  _losing_ control. Ich habe’s immer gewüsst.  I alvays knew, Gabriel.”, the man added in English, probably for her boyfriend’s benefit, but Gabriel chuckled and nodded.

“I understand enough German to know what ya meant there, Rudolf.  I… hell, ya know what I called ya, but ya gotta know I called ya that name because I genuinely thought you only wanted to make it harder on me instead of seein’ that you wanted to prevent me from goin’ off the deep fuckin’ end.  But now I see it – and I’m not gonna forget it, doc.  J'te jure.  Et j'veux te dire, t'jurer même, que je t'souhaite que le mieux du mieux du monde.  …Now, uh, just go back in there and carry on your talk with Radovan, okay?  Me an’ Sammy can handle dinner just fine.  And Theo and Chris and Graeme as well.”, he added as an afterthought, causing Sam to nod softly.

“Don’t worry, doctor Hartmann-”

“Ach,  _nein_ , du lieber.  Call me Rudolf.  You call your own medic by his first name, vhy should you call me by meine Familienname?”  He gave her a charming smile that had her return the favor and Gabriel fidget slightly by her side, which surprised her but which also got the medic to shake his head as he walked back inside to sit with the heavy again, as Gabriel had suggested, which gave her the chance to speak to her boyfriend.

“…You’re surely not jealous of  _Rudolf Hartmann_ …”

“Well…”, Gabriel admitted with a sigh, nuzzling her shoulder before pushing the tray with the pommes duchesse into the oven, where it stood over the chicken, right underneath the glowing-hot grill.  “…He’s only thirty, and he’s handsome, and he sure as hell is  _interested_ … t'aime pas que j'suis jaloux?”, he asked teasingly, and she chuckled.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I like your being jealous, it makes you so marvellously eager to stay close by and reassert your hold on my heart, which I happen to love no matter how you go about it-”, she admitted before being spun around, spoon still in hand, and then kissed passionately, ending her sentence in a happy 'mmmm’ against his lips.  The contact of their lips said everything they’d already voiced and everything they couldn’t: the depth of their love and devotion, the jealousy that both Gabriel and Sam felt – because, if Sam was honest, she’d  _heard_ how Gabriel had been with the medic a couple of times and how the man had  _never_ turned down his advances no matter how inebriated the pyro had been on each and every one of those few occasions – and the way it felt to the both of them to be together for the first holiday.  It was that thought that Gabriel voiced when they broke apart.

“…Hey, this is… I didn’t properly realize it before, but this is actually our first holiday together.  Any way ya look at it. Last year 'round this time, ya were-”  Sam suddenly sighed and shook her head vehemently, the continuation of that sentence coming to mind unbidden.  'Last year around this time, I was preparing for the New Year’s Rave in Melbourne and Michael… was still here…’

“Gabriel, mon amour, let’s… not think about that…”  True to his closeness to her, he seemed to sense her sadness and then realized the reason for it.

“Oh,  _merde_ , non, j'ai pas voulu…  Sammy, mon ange, mon coeur, oublie que j'l'ai dit.  Hell, I… all I wanted to show is how fuckin’  _happy_ I am that you’re here now.  …Last year, I was… drunk.  Rudolf cooked and I slept off the liquor all by my lonesome.”  Suddenly, Gabriel plucked the spoon from her hand and put it down very deliberately on the kitchen counter and marched her away from view from the others before kissing her again.  It was a much different kiss from their previous one: for one, it was a more indulgent kiss, deep and slow and tantalizing; the second fact that set it apart was the way his hands remained on her shoulders, not fidgeting or wandering.  In the end, all that got Gabriel to let go of her was the fact that she couldn’t seem to get enough air through her nostrils.

“Gabriel… why…?”, she asked, half amused and half dazed from the kiss, left with the distinct feeling of her lover’s tongue slowly and languidly swirling against her own and the taste of him in every corner of her mouth.

“J'veux pas que t'es triste maintenant.  I know I… made ya think of ya brother again.  And it’s  _okay_ to think about him – hell, it’d be a fuckin’ shame if ya didn’t think about him once in a while! – but…  Tu sais, j'espère, que Michael est un ange comme ma mère, une âme pure et élevée, ouais? …Your brother’s gone from here, yeah, but that don’t mean he’s gone forever.  He’s  _watching_ , up there, and every time you weep,  _he_ weeps – and when he sees ya with me, bein’ kissed with all the fuckin’ love I can hold in my heart sans l'faire rompre comme un ballon surgonflé…  Don’t ya think it makes him _happy_ to see you happy?”  The combination of the soft yet determined and warm tone her lover spoke to her in, and the thought – the  _much happier_ thought – that her brother was now up there in heaven, smiling down at her whenever she smiled back up at him and crying with her when she wept, brought her to nod.

“…Okay, I… guess I like the thought of Michael being up there a lot better than any alternative.  …And I won’t cry, not now and certainly not with your arms around me like this.  Oh, Gabriel, I love you.  I can’t begin to express how deep you’ve gotten into my being-”

“I try.”, he said, grinning though it was in no way lewd.  Then, he groaned and tended to the vegetables again, switching the fire off when the smell of carrots went from sweet to slightly smouldering. The two of them became absorbed in their dinner preparations again: Sam ladled the carrots into a serving tray while Gabriel took the chickens out of the oven, and Sam tended to the pommes duchesse while her boyfriend made a quick sauce using the grease the chickens had given off, a little bit of stock, and some cream.  But before they walked into the dining room with their treasure trove of delicious food, Gabriel placed his hand on Sam’s shoulder and held her close for a second to whisper his answer to her previous statement in her ear: “J’t'aime aussi, Sam, mon ange de feu, mon coeur, j’t'aime comme t'es la réponse à mon être tout entier.  La seule réponse qui répond à  _chaque putain de chose_. I wasn’t fuckin’ lying when I told Dell’s kids that you’re gonna be mrs. Gabriel Dantan one day – or that I’m gonna be mister Samantha Tennant, whichever option you prefer…”  Sam chuckled and lightly kissed her boyfriend, finding that a verbal answer wasn’t necessary. One look at each other told them all they needed to know, promised them everything they wanted to hear and so much more.

“Oi, you two – how’s about bringin’ the bloody food out 'ere?”, Theo unceremoniously interrupted their moment of tenderness with a statement Chris built up on effortlessly.

“Yeah, Dante, you wankah, stop distractin’ the sheila an’ get out 'ere with our dinnah!”  Gabriel looked like he’d rear up to the challenge again, but Sam held him back by placing her hand on his and calling out to the two snipers.

“Theo, Chris, the next one that calls Gabriel a 'wanker’ or that curses at all is going to bed without wine and dessert, got it?  Try and be civilized for an evening.”  Then, she turned to Gabriel, picking up the bowl with the carrots that she’d put down, and nudged her head at the door leading into the dining room.  “Let’s go and give thanks, huh?”

“Oui… yeah, let’s…”

 

“…An’ then, the bloody tossah says, 'e says…”, Theo said, laughing so much that he had to pause mid-sentence to seemingly clear his head, “…'e says 'oi think oi got bit in me balls, love’… a-an’ the sheila looks 'im over an’ shakes her head a-an’ says 'well, was noice knowin’ ya’!”  Radovan  _roared_ with laughter next to him, Gabriel found, hitting the table with one of his oversized hands so hard some of the wine from his glass spilled over the edge and ran down the delicate stem of it.

“That is so funny!  Ahahaha…  That is story like little Annoushka…”

“Annoushka?”, Gabriel asked, taking another sip of the wine, feeling mildly buzzed. It wasn’t the first time he’d drank again after his med adjustment, nor was it the first time he’d drank wine again, but he still couldn’t get used to the feeling of getting mildly intoxicated by  _wine_ of all things.  It went slowly and it didn’t give him the invigorated feeling he’d always gotten from vanilla gin, instead making his body feel drowsy and his brain feel like it was overcrowded with empty thoughts.  The heavy, however, seemed oblivious of his sluggishness and nodded.

“Da. Annoushka is… was… girlfriend to Radovan when he was younger. She was… Ona byla krasiva i umna.  And she had tongue like spy’s knife – sharp and quick.  One day, I ask her, 'Annoushkaya’ – was pet name for little Annoushka – 'Annoushkaya, we haff been together long time now, is not time for us to do  _more_ than kiss or little touch in dark?  Is not time for us to tell papa i mama we are grown people and we want to live together?’ and she say 'Da, Radovan, I agree, is time for us to say we want to live together. But papa will not want little Annoushka to live with you if you not ask it.  You must ask him tonight’ – and I nod.  Say I will be at house at eight, after dinner, and bring him gift from me.  Papa of Annoushka liked much good work of Radovan, so I made him leetle rose carved from stump of leetle tree.  I go see him, we talk, he accepts gift and gives me and Annoushka blessing and we celebrate with much vodka – I go back home and fall asleep in bed of leetle brother of Radovan, Leonid.  Suddenly, in middle of night, Leonid come running in room, all in panic, wake me up.  'Brat, brat, ty dolzhen prosnut'sya! Brother, wake up, is Annoushka!  She in your room!’  I open eyes and say 'why she here in my room?’, and leetle Leonid answer 'she find me in your bed and think I am you!’ – and then, Annoushka come into room of Leonid, see me sitting there in bed of Leonid, see little Leonid sitting there with sleep-clothes half off, and she storm out of house!  Ahahaha!”  Again, the heavy weapons expert hit the table, sloshing more wine out of his glass; the two snipers laughed along with Gabriel, who had to wipe a few stray tears of laughter out of the corners of his eyes.

“Oh, mon dieu… Rado’, ya sure didn’t have any luck…  Reminds me of the way ma mère a découvert que je préférais les gars.”, the pyro said with a soft, slightly inebriated grin – the two snipers and the heavy looked at him questioningly, wordlessly prompting him to tell them his story: “Donc… I was pretty damn sure from age sixteen that I was into guys – only had one experience with a girl back when I was a teenager, and it was pretty fuckin’  _awful_. But guys… oh,  _they_ got me going.  So there was this one guy, Corey Scheiner, who was a grade higher 'n me, and he was  _fuckin’ amazing_. Played lacrosse, helped out at his dad’s business in the weekends haulin’ bags of concrete and heavy toolboxes around… buff like ya can’t imagine.   _Dream_ body. Et il s'intéressait bien de moi – I mean, I wasn’t bad to look at, li'l scrawny back then, maybe, but he didn’t mind.  So we went out to a movie once and ended up in my room, naked an’ misbehaving – well, ya get the idea…”, Gabriel said meekly when the two snipers seemed more than a little greedy for more details, “…donc à ce point là, ma mère – my mom comes home.  She… probably  _heard_ us but thought I’d managed to get my hands on porn and was watching it, so she storms up to my room and just  _barged in_. Think she didn’t speak a single word to me for the rest of the day – probably didn’t know what to say.  And of course Corey didn’t wanna hang out with me again after that – scared for life, he was, or afraid my mom would’ve told  _his_ parents, she knew 'em well.”

“Bloody 'ell, Dante, must'a been  _lovely_ fer 'er.”, Theo said while Chris roared with laughter and Radovan snorted silently into his hands, shaking his head.  Gabriel rolled his eyes.

“Bien, she asked me the next day if it’d always been like that and I said 'well, mostly, ouais’ and then she surprised me and nodded.  She was always very tactful in public – I mean, it wasn’t really common knowledge back in our town, and she figured I’d come out when I wanted to, which I did…”  Sighing softly, Gabriel reminisced on that time of his life, which seemed like it’d passed him by in the blink of an eye and was now so far in the past that even the memories felt like they were buried deep.  It’d been a happier time, his late teenage and early adult years: unburdened by pyromania and with a mother that always received him with open arms, it had felt like the world had been all sunshine.  “…Ah, better fuckin’ days…”, he muttered, looking over to the sofa where Sam and Rudolf sat, both snoring softly while the television played a movie that had clearly lulled them into a light and easy sleep.

“…'Ey, Gabe, how come yeh went fer the sheila?”, Chris asked – when turning to his team mate, Gabriel noticed the lazy smile on the man’s features and the slightly appraising glint in his eyes, telling him his answer would be weighed and carefully measured in terms of devotion.  Still, he was honest when he shrugged and answered.

“J'sais pas, Chris – maybe it’s 'cause she looked like she was broken up just like me, or 'cause she fit in with those sorry BLU connards so well, or simply 'cause she was  _new_ , but I talked to her an’ there was… something.  Une étincelle, un petit coup d'épingle de … quelque chose de exaltante.  Elle m'enivrait plus que le gin à la vanille a jamais réussi à faire. Every second I was with her was like… like an epiphany.  Better than my sins.  So much better that I couldn’t say no to it, I couldn’t stay away from it, I couldn’t  _not want it_. I couldn’t not want her.  Still can’t.  I mean, look at her, layin’ there with her head on Rudolf’s damn shoulder… she looks like somethin’ a master sculptor thought of and moulded, somethin’ so beautiful that God himself  _weeps to see her_.”

“…An’ yeh don’t miss the rest?”, Chris asked again, showing clearly what had been on his mind.  Obviously the wine had made him feel a little more bold than usually, when he had to be propositioned.  Gabriel still remembered the days when he’d gone along with Chris too well – they hadn’t been all that far in the past as his previous memories, after all, since his last tryst with the lewd Australian had taken place as short ago as four months – and yet those were memories that he _wished_ were buried like the others all of a sudden.  Shaking his head, he meant to speak up and say that he didn’t feel the need to busy himself with 'the rest’ anymore, but Theo spoke before he could.

“Yeah, if oi can b'lieve this blightah here, y'are even more of a bloody  _fine_ fuck 'n yeh were back in the days oi had yeh, Dante-”

“Theo must take care, not  _insult_ Gavriel like he does now.  Leetle BLU pyro vill not like.”, Radovan said darkly, though it didn’t deter the snipers.

“…Oi’m oll for it, mate.  ’s Been too bloody long since oi got any, an’ oi doubt yer sheila’s lettin’ yeh have 'er like yeh did me… c'mon, Gabe…”  Chris drunkenly reached for Gabriel’s shoulder, probably meaning to pull him against himself, but Gabriel shook his head more vehemently and pushed the hand away, speaking up.

“Listen up, Chris – and you too, Theo.  First of all, what Sammy an’ I get up to, aucun de vos affaires, salauds.  Secondly, I don’t miss the fuckin’ casual sex.  I don’t miss it  _one bit_. How could I miss  _that_ merde when I’ve got somethin’ real and fuckin’  _amazing_ as I’ve got with Sammy?  She’s my dream – fiery, passionate, eager in every damn way… kind, warm-hearted, forgiving-”

“See? Ya  _know_ she’d forgive yeh for bein’ weak just once… mate, c'mon, do oi gotta bloody  _plead_ yeh fer it?  Oi  _need_ yeh, Gabe-”

“Vas t'faire foutre, Christopher, j’t'veux plus.  I don’t wanna fuck you anymore.  As a matter of fact, I don’t wanna fuck anyone but Sam anymore.   _Look at her_ – do ya really think I need to have  _your_ scrawny ass to bang if I’ve got  _quelqu'une aussi parfaite et chaleureuse comme elle?_ ” Gabriel’s patience had reached its limit, he found: rising from his chair so he virtually towered over the two snipers, who were closest to him in height at any given point, his voice thundered through the suddenly silent living room.  “You and Theo can go an’ fuck each other to oblivion for all I fuckin’ care!  Go on, get lost, have your 'fun’ until ya bleed from your asses from it – je m'en fous.  Just don’t  _ever again_ think that, 'cause I’m a little tipsy an’ Sammy’s asleep, I’ll fuckin’  _go with you_! Those days are _over_! I ain’t doing that no more – no more fuckin’  _drinkin’ myself into a half-coma_ , no more  _stupid casual sex that didn’t mean jack shit to me_ , no more  _lightin’ fuckin’ fires_ … Ce merde, c'est fini.  An’ I know I might fall off the fuckin’ horse at some point an’ drink too much or light something the hell up, but I  _am sure as hell not gonna fuck around anymore_! Nevermind if Sam would forgive me – I wouldn’t forgive  _myself_ for cheatin’ on her and possibly losing the best fuckin’ thing that’s ever happened to me in my entire goddamn life.”  Glaring at Chris and Theo, he was completely oblivious to the rest of the room, focused as he was on the shock the two snipers displayed – until, of course, he felt a smaller hand seek his and he looked to his side to see Sam standing there, matching his glare and adding her own words to his.

“Christopher Reeve and Theodore Mundy, you two ought to be ashamed of yourselves! You thought you could get Gabriel to go with you – what, were you hoping he’d  _forget_ about me?  Do you really care so  _little_ about the rest of the world that you’d want to break me and him apart just for your own pleasure?!   _Don’t you bloody answer that, you Australian inbred pieces of shit!_ ”, she snapped when both snipers intended to speak up to plead their cases and probably firmly accuse him of at least leading them on, Gabriel mused – both men instantly matched her glare at the insult, but Sam didn’t show signs of slowing down.  “You two… you’ve done nothing but make lewd comments, drink, and generally make this evening  _less_ enjoyable for the rest of us.  Not even  _Graeme,_ as drunk as  _he_ got before he fell asleep right where he sat, was being such a pain in the arse!   _He_ didn’t keep propositioning Gabriel,  _he_ didn’t keep asking him if I was any better than him at blowjobs –  _you two_ are the  _worst excuse for life_ and the  _biggest wastes of space_ in this entire base at the moment, and you ought to be left outside in the cold for the rest of the weekend!  …Gabriel, come on, I’ve had  _enough_ of the company of these two  _kangaroo-humper arseholes_ , we’re going back to our rooms and I’m  _making sure you know exactly why you don’t miss either of them anymore_.”, she said, pulling him along out of the dining room – as he followed her, he gave a quick apologetic glance at Radovan and Rudolf, who both looked at him as though he’d been brought back from the dead in front of their eyes.  However, when the two of them were inside the corridor to their own rooms again, the heavy metal door locked, Sam relaxed again and Gabriel spoke to her tentatively.

“…T'as m'entendu leur dire que j'veux que toi, huh?”  Seeing the tension still keeping its hold on his girlfriend, he pulled her a little closer and gently rubbed his hands over her back.  “…Mon ange… mon coeur…  hey, détends-toi, ils ont eu ce qu'ils méritent… They got what they had comin’, which is a good scolding from ya…”, he said, kissing her forehead tenderly, smiling when she sighed and relaxed in his hold.

“Yeah, well, I can’t help it – you woke me up and when I heard what you said, I just…  _where they get the nerve to proposition you…!_ ”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t like I was gonna say 'yes’ to them ever again, they’re  _ugly_ and they’re  _horrible lays_ , they deserve each other… and, 'course, why would I want anyone else when I’ve got you, mon ange?”, he said, kissing Sam lightly on the lips, unsurprised when her hand snaked its way up to tangle in his hair as she deepened the kiss and transmitted her need through to him just as easily as lighting a candle.  Looking her over, his heart ached with the sudden rush of affection he felt for her, first and foremost though certainly not without the counterbalance of desire kissing her deeply always brought with it.  “…Ah, mon coeur… Sammy, ya just make me  _ache_ for ya like…”

“Like the world could end and you wouldn’t care as long as you’re with me, huh?”, Sam supplied automatically, seemingly guessing his thoughts – when he nodded, he found her grinning and pushing open the door to their living room.  “…Then surely you don’t care if I say  _I can’t wait until the bedroom anymore_ , love… j'ai si besoin-”  Another ache, though this time communicating a much baser need, had him grinning and cutting her off.

“ _T'es pas seule_ , mon ange – let me show ya just how little I miss those stupid guys now that I’ve got you…”


	31. A love like paradise, how hot it burned

“ _…So, how was your first Thanksgiving dinner?”_ , Damien asked, his voice bearing a slightly teasing note which caused Sam to roll her eyes.

“It was very nice – or, well, that’s to say, it would’ve been perfect if it weren’t for the snipers-”

“ _The snipers?  Why did they… detract from the experience?”_ , her brother asked, sounding nonplussed and prompting a loud snort from Sam.

“Pfeh, they’re Australians, they’re loud-mouthed and dirty men – and I don’t just mean they think bathing’s optional, they’re  _lewd and coarse_ and they  _both_ tried to  _proposition Gabriel-_ ”

“ _Ouch, yes, I’ll bet that got them on your good side.  …So, should I be expecting a call from your Administrator because noses got broken by_ you  _for once?  Or did Gabriel throw the punches?”_

“Have some faith in us, Damien, brother dearest – no punches thrown, but I think we may have traumatized the men-”

“Oh, Sammy, they weren’t  _traumatized_ by you tellin’ them you were gonna ‘show me exactly why I don’t miss them anymore’…”, Gabriel commented loudly in the background, something Damien of course hadn’t missed or misheard either if his soft sigh was any indication.  When her brother spoke up again, his voice was carefully concerned as well as slightly amused.

“ _…I think I don’t need to ask any further there, then, it sounds like your teammates got the short end of a very short and explosive temper.  By the way, give Gabriel my regards and tell him I’m glad there weren’t any casualties.”_

“Gabriel, mon amour, Damien says hello and that he’s glad there weren’t any casualties.”, Sam said, to which her boyfriend only responded with a broad smile and a wink at her before returning to his book, leaving Sam to talk to her brother again.  “…But it was such a joy to cook for someone besides Gabriel again.  Rudolf and Radovan – those are Gabriel’s team’s medic and heavy weapons expert, in case you were wondering-”

“ _The German and Russian names gave it away already, but do continue.”_ , Damien interrupted briefly, causing Sam to smile at her brother’s mental acuity.

“…Yes, well, they’re charming men in their own right.  Rudolf’s actually around your age and he talked a lot about how things were very different in his childhood… how much less there’d been to do for him and his younger sister, whom he called 'Röschen’ each and every time, nevermind that he’s told me she’s about my age now and  _happily married_ … heh…”, Sam said, smiling as she remembered the conversation with the RED medic.  Rudolf had been charming and engaging, and they’d basically talked until he’d asked if she’d be interested in watching a movie, at which point she’d happily agreed and where the both of them had fallen asleep due to the combination of a full stomach, a few glasses of wine and the comfort of a good couch.  However, remembering Gabriel’s slight jealousy of the day before and seeing the way her lover was looking at her again, eyebrow raised and eyes questioning, she quickly tacked on: “…anyway, it was pleasant. The cooking, the food – Gabriel’s recipe, he’s learnt it from his sister, he told me – the dessert, the wine, the pleasant conversations… up until the point where Gabriel, very understandably, got upset when bloody Chris Reeve and Theo Mundy tried to pressure him into forgoing  _me_ in favor of getting-”

“ _Please do us all a favor and_ do not  _finish that sentence, Sammy, none of the words that you could speak are things I need to know about those snipers of yours.”_ , Damien said, his tone of voice horrified as he accurately guessed the rest of her thought, which made her blush meekly and Gabriel chuckle softly in the background.  Deciding to try a different subject, Sam mustered a smile as she queried her brother.

“…And how was  _your_ Thanksgiving?”

“ _Oh, it was great.  I’ve met Katrin’s parents, who are wonderful people with a warm home…  I’ve met Katrin’s younger brother, who is actually close to your age-”_

“A lot of people are close to my age, Damien – Archie, Billy-”, Sam said, causing Gabriel to groan and roll his eyes.

“Is Damien  _still_ pushin’ that point?  Damien, man, I respect ya tremendously, but  _pour l'amour de Dieu_ , arrêtez de mentionner que je suis putain de vieux à chaque occasion.  I think Sam  _knows_ I’ll be fifty by the time she’s forty.”, he said loudly, walking up to embrace her and whisper into her ear: “ _…_ and I promise I’m still gonna want ya just as bad by then…”

“Mmm, mon amour-”, Sam said, very gladly kissing him on the cheek – however, just as Gabriel meant to return the sentiment with a proper and probably very heated kiss, Damien spoke up again, his voice clearly showing his embarrasment.

“ _Would you two please… keep your hands off each other while I’m on the phone with you, Sammy?  I know you’re young and hormonal, I don’t have to_ hear  _it. And I just mentioned the age thing because he’s actually a very pleasant young man-”_

“Oh, please, Damien, brother dearest, when you call him 'young man’ it makes you sound ancient.  …But I’m glad Katrin’s brother was pleasant, and I’m glad her parents are wonderful.”

“ _Yes, they are, and we’ve talked a lot about me – my job, my background, my ambitions in life… well, what little ambitions I haven’t realized, that is, because there’s precious little men that have what I have at age thirty-one, and I know that full well.  They were… surprised when I said that I wouldn’t expect Katrin to give up on a job that she clearly loves in order to settle down.  But when I explained about our mum and dad, how they_ both  _had highly demanding jobs and how they’ve made it work by loving and supporting each other unconditionally, they understood.  Greg – that’s Katrin’s brother – even said he’d rethink his own opinion on the matter.  …And their food was good too.  The way they make turkey is different from the way we like it at Christmas dinner-”_

“Yes, they apparently eat it with cranberries – Archie spent all of last Tuesday night enlightening me on the subject.  He’s gone home to his family, together with Billy, who looked  _thrilled_ at the prospect of meeting all of Archie’s brothers-”

“Pfeh, he was just thrilled at gettin’ introduced as Arch’s  _boyfriend –_ and he had a lot of poignant answers ready for those idiots among 'em that  _dared_ comment on loverboy’s preferences, because apparently Archie’s two eldest brothers, Pete and Rick, aren’t really big fans of Team Man-Love.”, Gabriel commented eagerly.  Sam rolled her eyes and smiled at her boyfriend until her brother spoke up a little more softly as he had before.

“ _…Sam, am I on speakerphone?”_

“Uh… n-no, why d'you ask?”

“ _Gabriel is still very close to this Billy, and he did say to me that he’s never had any feelings, romantic or otherwise, for a woman before he met you, doesn’t it… I don’t know, are you okay with it?”_ Surprise made way for a quick but fleeting wave of anger directed at her brother for over-simplifying the situation, but after that came resolve, which got Sam to sigh and speak up softly, her every word making Gabriel look at her more and more warmly.

“Gabriel and Billy shared a lot, so it’s only natural that they’re now friends, and that they’re still close.  And even if he still has some residual feelings for him… that’s to be understood.  I mean, he never said that he doesn’t love Billy, he just said that he loves me  _more deeply and more fondly_ than he does him.  Love is… letting go.  Not only letting go of what you thought was the irreversible truth about your life, like Gabriel thinking he would never be with a woman or like me thinking it would be betraying Michael’s memory by falling in love and finding happiness in the middle of all the hurt, but also letting go of your doubts and your worries.  I’m not worried that Gabriel would leave me to go back to Billy – just as Gabriel isn’t worried that I’ll find someone closer to my age that’ll make me feel like he makes me feel. I just… trust that he won’t, and he trusts that I won’t.  Love is trust.  …You should know that, you basically walked into Katrin’s parents’ house with nothing but the  _trust_ that they’d accept you.”  Silence reigned for the longest time on the other end of the line – Sam wasn’t speaking up, not when Gabriel gratefully used the moment to squeeze her hand and kiss the top of her head with all the tender warmth and contentment of a man that had found his place in the puzzle of life at long last – until finally a sigh broke the quiet and preceded Damien’s answer to the sentiment.

“ _…If you put it like that… and I suppose Gabriel must have greater feelings for you, since he not only left Billy for you, but the guy never got him to let go of his other, uh, 'mishaps’ as readily as_ you  _have-”_

“Damien, man, don’t sugarcoat it, you can say 'fuck-ups’, I can hear ya  _think_ it anyway.”, Gabriel said, his mouth right next to her cellphone before he kissed Sam audibly on the cheek and added more for the benefit of her brother than for her enlightenment: “And nobody’s gotta worry about me leavin’ Sam, not even for Billy – that was the entire goddamn  _point_ of the argument last night with Chris an’ Theo.  I don’t want that shit anymore.  I only want  _her_ now – her love, her touch, her kisses, her body… her life.  Happy to confess that I’m now strictly property of Samantha Tennant.  I’d get that fuckin’ tattooed over my heart if the world doesn’t believe it on my say-so.”

“ _…I don’t… think that’ll be necessary, Gabriel, but, uh, thank you for the confirmation.  Sam-”_

“I know and I’m never letting him go anymore, Damien.”, she said with a broad grin, pulling Gabriel against her again for a second before allowing him to move off, back to his book.  “…So I’m glad that you had a great Thanksgiving as well.”, she said, causing her brother to chuckle and agree.

“ _Just as perfect as yours, as a matter of fact, only_ without  _having to bear someone propositioning my girlfriend.”_

“And failing badly.”, Sam remarked, causing Gabriel to nod and mutter 'damn right’ under his breath, turning a page with a little more force than necessary, causing the paper to make a sharp snapping sound and causing him to look the book over nervously.  “…Hey, uh, Damien?  Now that I’ve got you on the telephone, I’ve… I’ve been thinking about something…  You know I promised you that I’d come over for Christmas and New Year’s, right?”

“ _You’re wondering whether Gabriel’s allowed to come with?”_ , he asked shrewdly, and Sam smiled softly.

“Well, that, and I was wondering whether Katrin would be there too – because she  _is_ your girlfriend and you’ve been over at her place for Thanksgiving.” Another silence fell on the other side of the line, but Damien was a lot quicker with ending it that time.

“ _…Well, yes, Katrin is going to be here, but I’m sure she understands that you’ll be here – and that you’ll bring your boyfriend.  She found Gabriel… likeable.  She liked his honesty.  …But my dearest little sister, I can’t help but feel like there’s another reason for your asking me about the upcoming holidays…”_ Again, he displayed such stunning insight that Sam subconsciously looked around to see if he wasn’t standing there, reading her face somehow. Grinning, she nodded before voicing her agreement.

“Yes, it’s true.  I… you remember, at the visitor’s day, that Gabriel and I entertained Dell’s children?”

“ _How could I forget the sight of the two of you being tackled to the ground by two children that are barely half your height – not even a third of your height when I consider your boyfriend and his 'attacker’?”_ A smile made it to Sam’s face at the thought of that day, something Gabriel caught and happily mirrored.

“…mmhmm… yes, well, they managed to railroad me into confessing my 'normal’ job, the making of fireworks, and once they knew  _that_ , they simply didn’t let me go before I’d promised to make them fireworks.  I’ve checked it with Dell: he can’t make fireworks, but he’s got a State of Texas Pyrotechnical License that’ll allow him to fire the stuff I make for him-”

“ _You trust your engineer with fireworks?”_ , Damien asked carefully, prompting Sam to shrug.

“He’s more than just an engineer, Damien, he’s an explosives expert as well – he used to make our team’s explosives until I took over from him. Anyway, Dell’s all squared away, and I know that I’ve got an Illinois State Pyrotechnical License, the company made me sign about ten different waivers for it… but you’ve been handling my legal affairs ever since my move to the States, did you happen to renew my Pyrotechnics Guild International subscription?  And, uh, my State of New York Approval for Pyrotechnical Displays?”, she asked surreptitiously, which finally got Damien to sigh and then laugh lightly.

“ _Ah, I see.  You want to do more than just the display for your friend Dell and a display for the rest of your teams on base, you want to have a private display here at my house as well… well, I’ll look into it.  I’m no good with all of the legalities and technicalities, so I had a friend of mine, who is a lawyer, take care of most of your affairs – I’ll ask Rupert whether he’s also renewed those subscriptions.  Until you hear from me that he hasn’t, proceed as if he has, I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t.  …So I should be prepared to see fireworks then?”_ , he asked lightly, and Sam chuckled.

“You’ve known me for all twenty-four years of my life, Damien, you big  _ostrich_ , you  _know_ that you’ve got to expect fireworks when it comes to me.  …Anyway, I’ll leave you to it now – Gabriel has enjoyed his reading but I’m afraid he’ll grab my mobile phone and disconnect us if I spend any more time talking to you-”  As if he’d been waiting for her to say it, Gabriel suddenly rose from his seat and briskly walked over to her and plucked the mobile out of her hands, speaking into it with a broad grin.

“Damien, man, I’m sorry, but she’s right.  Ya have a good Friday with Katrin, and see ya for Christmas, Sammy’ll call you back in a week or two to arrange things.  Byyyeeee!”  Pushing the button to end the call, he grinned down at Sam while placing the phone carefully on the table. “…So, now that Damien’s wished us a happy Friday, and now that I’ve finished readin’ some Shakespeare…”

“Oh, you were reading  _Shakespeare?_ ”, Sam asked teasingly – it had been pretty hard to miss, because the book had the man’s most famous and well-known portrait on the cover – “I’m sorry I interrupted then-”  She wasn’t surprised that Gabriel pulled her against himself, but his somewhat impatient half-growl did surprise her.

“ _Hrm_ , Shakespeare’s a stone-cold fuckin’  _dead guy_ while  _you_ are very alive an’ incredibly hot – I think it’s clear who’s gettin’ my full an’ undivided attention this morning…”  As he insistently pulled her along, kissing her neck in the process, Sam gladly indulged him, figuring somewhat distractedly that it was no use trying to pretend that she didn’t want her boyfriend at least as much as he wanted her.

 

“Hey, yo, Gabe, ya look like ya ain’t slept none all weekend – that good, huh?”, Billy said that Monday as Gabriel stretched in the respawn room before the start of battle, prompting a soft grin from the pyro.

“Better. I’ll spare you all the tedious details, but I got all ya think  _and_ sleep.  _And_ good food, too.  No complaints here.”

“…I, uh, also heard from tha doc jus’ now that you an’ Sammy spent ya weekend with him, Rado’ an’ Graeme, an’ that Chris an’ Theo ain’t spoken to ya since Thursday evenin’.  He, uh, said it was 'cause they were bein’ assholes – an’ a whole bunch'a crap in fuckin’  _German_ that he ain’t even needed ta translate 'cause I know what he meant… soooo, what, uh, I mean, if ya don’t mind me askin’, what happened? 'Cause I know ya ain’t nevah been Chris’ biggest buddy, an’ ya barely even  _talk_ to Theo from BLU, but ya don’t hate 'em either… so what gives?  What’d they do?”  Groaning, Gabriel ran a hand over his face.  Rudolf caught his gaze and blushed softly, but he didn’t apologize nor did he run away.  In the end, it was the thought of how the medic felt more at ease around him that got him to sigh and look at the scout again to give him the explanation he clearly wanted.

“…Chris propositioned me, along with Theo – they were drunk-”

“ _They_ were drunk, huh?”, Billy said, causing the pyro to snort loudly.

“Yeah, I know what it sounds like, and hell, I drank too, but nowhere near enough to forget about Sammy, let alone  _bang Chris or Theo –_ or  _both_ , they didn’t seem like they’d fuckin’ minded sharin’ me-”

“Ya kiddin’, right?  Gabriel, man, I figured it’d just be Chris makin’ some kind'a comment 'bout havin’ banged you – since, ya know, ya used ta do Chris ev'ry otha week… I nevah really undahstood why, 'cause he  _is_ filthy an’ an asshole, but… seriously, he’s a fuckin’  _moron_ too. Nobody gets between you an’ Sammy, not even me.”  The scout shook his head – and whether it was chance, fate, or just the worst luck in the world, Chris sat down next to the scout and Billy  _had to_ speak up loud enough for the entire respawn room to hear.  “'Ey,  _Auss-hole!_ Hope ya learnt that Gabriel ain’t interested anymore, douchebag-o-rific, he’s got  _Sam_ keepin’ him satisfied now.”

“Yeh bloody spastic li'l wankah!”, Chris reacted vehemently, intending to swing his sniper rifle at the scout only to be stopped by Grant.

“Look 'ere, son, ah don’t know what happened this 'ere weekend, an’ ah’m not sure ah’m willin’ t'ever find out, but if'n ah see yeh do tha’ 'gain, yeh kin stay in tha’ there camper van'a yers t'night. …Billy, son, yew too.  Don’t yeh go provokin’ Chris none, no matter what he’s done t'yew or tuh Dante, awrigh’?”

“Awright already…”, Billy grumbled, though he gave Chris’ back the one-fingered salute as the sniper stalked off to the resupply cabinet in the farthest corner of the room.  Then, in a softer, more subdued tone, he added to Gabriel: “…So I take it ya Thanksgivin’ dinnah wasn’t as pleasant as ya hoped, huh?”  At the thought, Gabriel shook his head, smiling softly.

“Oh, it was pleasant.  I just… blocked Chris and Theo from my mind, which was kind of hard since they were constantly makin’ lewd comments throughout dinner.  When I had a li'l wine, the crudeness became a li'l more bearable – of course, then they thought they could  _suggest a fuck_ , which had me scoldin’ them for thinkin’ I’d ever two-time Sammy, and then  _Sammy_ scolding them for bein’ dirty assholes that were too fuckin’ selfish to consider that maybe I didn’t want them anymore.  …Hell, the dinner was great, the food was delicious, and the night was pleasant enough. Breakfast on Friday mornin’ was perfect, too…  But enough about me, how was  _your_ Thanksgivin’ over at loverboy’s house?”  Instantly, Gabriel could clearly see that his friend and former lover’s spirits lifted at just the memory, telling him that his experience was just like his and Sam’s first Thanksgiving together had been.

“It was  _great_ , man – Archie’s mom’s a little like my own mom, all warm an’ kind an’ bubbly until one of Archie’s brothas cursed or disrespected me, then she turned  _wicked stern…_ But it was awesome – I ate so much turkey I felt like I’d nevah close my pants again, an’ Archie’s nieces an’ nephews are great kids.  A fuckin’ noisy an’ overfull house – but that was great ta have.  At my house, it’s always just my mom an’ my li'l sis an’ me, so to have almost thirty people in one livin’ room was… refreshin’.”

“And did one of Archie’s brothers give ya a hard time, like he thought?”, Gabriel asked, causing Billy to snort.

“They  _tried –_ but I answered 'em right back.  Said 'why’s it any fuckin’ different from when ya dated ya wife?  Think you an’ her kissin’ didn’t gross the rest'a ya brothas out just as much as me kissin’ Archie’s grossin’ you out now?’.  No one else said a  _peep_ anymore afta that.”  Seeing the self-satisfied look on his friend’s face made the pyro chuckle softly, nodding in clear approval.  “…An’ my mom called us that Friday.  She talked ta Archie for, like, five minutes.  Apparently Cilly – ’s my sistah – got our gift an’ was so happy with it that she hadn’t wanted ta go ta bed without 'tha pretty li'l dolly also wearin’ a pyjama an’ sleepin’ with me in my bed’.  My mom had ta stay up half tha night makin’ her a set'a nightwear.  It was okay, though, she kinda could laugh 'bout it already when she told me.  An’ when Archie got off tha phone with her, he was smilin’, so…”  Billy’s content sigh didn’t surprise Gabriel at all anymore, and he found himself speaking up softly, voicing his thoughts on the reason of that smile lightly to his friend.

“Sounds to me like you an’ Arch’ are real damn serious about each other, mon ami.  …So, got any plans about what ya gonna do after you’re both done with ya jobs?  I mean, Arch gets off next year, and you’ve still got two years to go…”  As soon as he mentioned it, Billy’s smile flickered away so instantaneously that Gabriel felt a rush of regret for what he believed was upsetting his friend and former boyfriend. “…Oh, fuck, I-”

“Gabriel, Villiam, zhe battle vill ztart in a few Minute…”, Rudolf said softly, sounding sorry to interrupt their conversation, and Billy nodded.

“Awkay, doc, thanks for tha heads-up!  …It’s okay, Gabe, ya ain’t… it’s just that we did talk 'bout it an’… An’ Arch’ said that he ain’t mind stayin’ on long enough for us ta quit at tha same time.  But he don’t know if tha comp'ny is gonna let him…  Oh, let’s just not fuckin’ talk about that shit, I’m gettin’ depressed just thinkin’ about it right now.  Let’s just-”  The horn sounded right then, causing Billy and Gabriel to grin at one another before rushing out the door, the pyro pulling his gas mask in place with one hand as the other held his Detonator.  “Yo, ya feel up to harassin’ BLU right on their doorstep, Dante?”, Billy said, to which the pyro answered only with a nod and a nudge of his head to the corridor at the right-hand side.  “Ah, ya wanna go 'round that way?  Good choice, man, they ain’t nevah seein’ us comin’!”

“Mmmthshhh hhhphhh shmmm…”, Gabriel muttered, keeping his Detonator firmly in hand while also grabbing his Axtinguisher.  He felt a little tense – normally, he’d follow John’s orders to the letter, but the soldier hadn’t given him any express assignment; what was more, he had only gone right for the BLU side of the battlefield on a handful of occasions, let alone together with Billy, and he’d gotten forcibly removed each and every time.

“…Hey, dude, I hear machinery… think Dell’s this far ahead already?”, Billy said, slowing down and then halting right off a fork in the road.  Gabriel shrugged and pointed at the right fork, which would lead them around the majority of the battlefield, so they’d end up mere steps from the BLU respawn room.  “I’ll run ahead, you watch our backs, awright?”, the scout added – Gabriel meant to object until he saw his friend take a can of energy drink from his belt and open it.  “Anythin’ that comes this way, shoot a flare inta its ass, ya hear?  Even if it’s Pierre-”

“Hmmshpphhhssshmmm hhph hhhhthshhh Phhhrrrrrr…”, Gabriel muttered softly, grinning just as broadly as Billy: then, the scout downed the energy drink in a big gulp and ran off.  Almost instantly after he rounded the corner, the sound of rapid fire from a sentry followed, and Gabriel could hear Dell’s heartfelt curse even over the sound of Billy’s Force-a-Nature.

“ _Yeh stay off'a tha-AGH!”_ The engineer clearly had taken a shot of hot lead at point-blank range, because Gabriel could hear the man’s body hit the ground.  A second later, the sound of the sentry short-circuiting followed and Billy walked back around the corner leisurely.

“Took care'a tha hardhat an’ his sentry, but he’s comin’ back in a li'l while, we should hurry-”  The scout meant to continue, Gabriel was sure, but suddenly a burst of fire engulfed him from behind and he went down so fast he couldn’t even cry out in pain anymore.

“Mmmmrrrth!!”, Gabriel groaned when Sam rounded the corner, her Backburner firmly in her hands, running at him.  He knew he couldn’t outrun her, not if he risked his life if he turned his back to her, so he did the only thing he  _could_ do, which was to backpedal down the hallway while firing flare after flare at her.  “Mmmrrrth…”, he repeated when Sam gave chase, the spurt of fire issuing from her flamethrower coming dangerously close to his fire-retardant suit, so close that he could feel the heat issuing from it – but then, suddenly, she gave a loud but muffled cry and Pierre stood behind her, straightening his tie and flicking the blood off his knife.

“I over'eard you and Billy talkink, mon ami – thank you for not shootink zee flare up my derrière, mon ami.  …Did she get 'im?”

“Mmmhmm… shrrrrr hhhphhhth phhhphrrrr, hmmm thmmmmnnth mmmnnn hhhth…”, Gabriel muttered, nodding quickly before taking his flamethrower again.  He’d been discovered, so there wouldn’t be much use for him to continue harassing the BLU team so close to their spawn.  However, the spy shook his head and motioned for his flaregun.

“Eef we go een quietly, we could feenish what you and Billy started, mon ami – don’t geeve up yet.  …'Ow about eet?”

“Mmmhh, hhh mmmth mmmmkh thmmm shmmmmnnshhh thhh thrrrrshhh hhh phmmm Phmmmshh…”, Gabriel admitted, and as if the spy could see his grin, he mirrored it, and the two set off down the corridor again, Pierre cloaking and Gabriel eagerly holding both his flaregun and Axtinguisher again, ready to set fire to another of the opposing team and keep them on their toes while the rest of his team pushed for their control points.

 

“Sam, please, could you tear your attention away from your pc, finally? I’m fuckin’  _lonely_ …”, Gabriel complained late that Friday night, causing Sam to look up from the screen to see her boyfriend lean against the doorway to their bedroom, nearly completely undressed.  The way he looked at her told her enough about his plans for the remainder of their evening, and she had to admit that she was completely on board with that, but still she didn’t move away just yet.

“I know, mon amour, but this is important as well, I’m ordering the supplies I need to make those fireworks… cool your fire for five more minutes?  If I don’t order enough potassium perchlorate-”

“Okay, okay, but just so you know, I’m expecting fireworks tonight too, ma chère.  I’ll be waiting for you to light me all up-”

“Oh, believe me, with the way you’re looking right now, you’ll be lucky I don’t burn you to the ground tonight-  _mmm,_ mon amour _, don’t…_ ”, she said, having to moan softly when Gabriel pressed his lips to her shoulder and neck lightly, making her body tingle.

“Can’t you order the perchlorate tomorrow morning?”, Gabriel muttered in between kisses that had her reach behind her to tangle her hand in his hair.  Then, after gently nuzzling her neck, he nipped at her earlobe and whispered heatedly into her ear: “ _I could just explode right about now, all I need is you there with me…_ ”

“Ah, Gabriel… je te promets, encore cinq minutes, pas plus… then you can…  _mmmm…_  then I’ll give you everything you want…”  Her lover wasn’t yet fully convinced, she found: he got to his knees next to her desk chair and wrapped his arms around her, very unsubtly managing to get his hands underneath her shirt and pulling it up so he could caress her breast through the flimsy fabric of her bra.  However, when Sam didn’t stop paying attention to her computer screen, he groaned and got up again.

“J’t'attends, mon ange, don’t be too long – five minutes, pas plus.”  She nodded, blushing softly and clicking on to the next step of the order form – she’d already filled out the information for her previous three orders so the next step was basically three clicks long. However, just as she’d finished the order and meant to shut down her laptop, she noticed a desktop notification of a new e-mail, and when she opened it, she had to bite her lip hard and hold in her breath, afraid that she’d cry.  Tears ran over her cheeks anyway, and in the end she lost the battle against herself, sobbing softly.  “…Ange, ça va?  Tes cinq minutes se sont passées…”, Gabriel spoke softly, as if he sensed that she was upset – when he walked back in from the bedroom, his eyes betrayed worry, and when he noticed her tears he instantly walked up to her, his need forgotten in favor of carefully pulling her into him for a tender kiss on her forehead. “Mon ange, qu'est-ce que c'est?”  Almost instantly, his eyes went to the screen and widened.  “What the fuck… who  _sent_ this?!” On the screen was a short but infuriating e-mail that Gabriel read, which somehow made the contents  _worse_  to Sam.  “ _'You’re a disgrace to your parents and a shame to your brother.  Everyone in your life deserves better, far better.  You getting burnt in the fire that took your brother’s life was your just reward for your lying, deceiving ways – it’s a shame you didn’t die instead of him, because he deserved his life and you deserve only pain and misery. Every day you live is an affront to Michael’s memory, and your parents agree, otherwise they wouldn’t have sued you.  There isn’t a doubt in anyone’s mind that you’re sick and disturbed, you witch. Hopefully you’ll do the right thing someday and end your life so that your space is no longer wasted in this world.’_ … Okay…”  Blinking, Sam looked Gabriel over.  He didn’t devolve into shouting insults at the person on the other end, nor did he make threats.  Instead, he stared at the text on the screen in silence, his eyes narrowed and betraying that he was plotting brutal, vindictive revenge on the person.  Then, just as she meant to speak up and tell him that she’d just delete the e-mail, he spoke again: “Bien, donc, laisse-moi.  J'te jure, j'vais seulement lui répondre du même façon, mon ange…”

“N-no, Gabriel, don’t… it isn’t worth your energy or effort-”, she said, only to be interrupted by him again, shaking his head.  Sam had to admit that she was getting scared: she had never seen Gabriel like that, with his jaw set and his eyes betraying pure and outright hatred for the person on the other end of the communication. “It’s… just someone that holds a grudge-”

“Yeah, and that’s supposed to make  _this shit_ okay, ou quoi?  Non.  Nobody insults and trash-talks ya like this, mon ange, or they get to deal with  _me_ as well.  Laisse-moi répondre, j'te jure j'vais pas lui menacer.  Juste répondre du même façon.”  With a sigh, Sam rose, feeling unable and unwilling to argue with Gabriel over something as  _stupid_ as the e-mail she’d gotten.  “…donc…”, Gabriel said as he cracked his knuckles before typing rapidly, speaking his words as he went: “ _'You’re the only disgrace in this story.  What happened to Michael was a tragedy, more so because no one in this entire world was wounded more than I was in every way – but to abuse his death like this for your own petty grievances with me is not only reprehensible, it is-’_ eh, comment on le dit… ah, yes,  _'it is horrible and inhuman.  Seeing as you don’t have a heart or a conscience, I’ll make no appeal on either, instead saying that if you value the opinion of the rest of the world about you for what you wish upon me, you’ll never waste your time and your breath contacting me like this again.  You may think me sick and disturbed, but in fact the only thing you are proving when you use those words against me is your_ own  _depraved mind.  Don’t presume you knew my brother, and don’t presume you know my parents – and certainly don’t presume you know me.  I find myself sorry to have ever made your acquaintance and I wish you a very happy life far, far away from me and from anyone that I value.’_ …And then a little something from me:  _'This is Samantha’s partner, Gabriel, telling you that you’re a horrible fucking excuse of a human being and that no matter who or what you used to be to her, she’s better off knowing your true nature.  Next time you want to call my Samantha names you should consider for yourself, kindly go fuck yourself until you bleed.’_  That should fuckin’ do it.”  He clicked 'send’ before she could stop him – the breath stopped in her throat as she considered that he’d basically just told one of her former colleagues to 'kindly go fuck yourself until you bleed’ in her name – but then, as he clicked the e-mail shut again and turned to her, his face showing the anger he’d channeled into the reply as well as the utter compassion with her sorrow, she felt secure all of a sudden.  “Mon ange, just  _forget_ about that mail, okay?  T'en fait pas.  Whoever sent that e-mail to ya is a goddamn  _coward_  – if someone won’t say shit like that to your face, givin’ you the chance to punch their fuckin’ lights out, then they shouldn’t say shit like that at all.  And you’re better than them any day.”  He rose from the chair again and pulled her against his form, holding her gently against himself: Sam gladly pressed her cheek against his chest, listening to his slightly elevated heartbeat and feeling the warmth radiate from inside of him, warming her again and soothing her nerves.  Sensing her unease, Gabriel added: “…T'inquiètes pas. They’re just some fuckin’  _bully_ tryin’ to get you to break down and cry – you bark back at 'em and they back the fuck down.  An’ if they don’t, we just ignore the hell outta them, okay?  J'vais pas laisser un connard ou une salope comme ça te faire peur ou te faire misérable-”

“Thanks…”, Sam whispered, shaking her head.  Fear had left her, and horror was far away now that Gabriel explained to her what his view on the e-mail was.  She had to admit that it made sense, the way he said it: the e-mail was meant to elicit a vehement response from her, nothing more and nothing less.  If she broke down, if she allowed it to wound her, all it would achieve was to make someone halfway around the globe feel like she could act like that to another.  Gabriel’s answer would probably get her to back down a lot better than deleting her e-mails would.  Switching her laptop off, she sighed, leaning against Gabriel again.  His body felt soft and warm under her fingertips and against her cheek, but his proximity didn’t inspire the heat he had promoted in her before.  Looking up at her boyfriend, she spoke in a soft tone: “…Oh, mon amour, can I… can we take a range check on-”  Instantly, Gabriel nodded, leaning down to kiss her tenderly on the cheek and speaking up to cut her off.

“Wasn’t thinkin’ about it anymore, Sammy, hun.  Let’s just… go an’ sleep. Or if you want, we can still read a bit – or I can read you from my favorite book when I was a kid, guaranteed to make all of your trouble seem like it ain’t even there…”

“You know what?  I’d like to hear you read from that book of yours.  Is it in French?”, she asked, prompting Gabriel to nod with a broad smile.

“Heh, ouais, mais j'vais le traduire en lisant, juste pour toi, mon ange. Now c'mon, the little chocolate girl and the prince of the honey kingdom are waitin’ for us to live their adventures with 'em!” Grinning, she took his hand and walked along with him to the bookshelf by the door, picking up the book with the caramel stain on the front cover that looked like it had been read hundreds or even thousands of times, and then on to their bedroom.  It felt to Sam, as she switched off the light of their living-dining room, like she closed her previous life forever: but as Gabriel switched on his bedside lamp and patted the bed next to him, allowing her to nestle against him on top of the covers, she knew that all she did was close her heart to the hatred that she didn’t deserve.


	32. You lift me up with the things you say

“Sam!! S'mantha!!”  Gabriel had really not meant to let it get as far as it had, he mused as he detached from his girlfriend, who instantly blushed and put on her long-sleeved T-shirt again before straightening herself.  Her hair was still a little tousled from the way he’d gently raked his hands through it before, sometime while they’d been kissing passionately, and her blush would most likely give her away the second Dell caught sight of her, but the RED pyro figured that the old engineer could take the knowledge that she had gotten sidetracked during breakfast.  Gabriel could still hear wisps of the conversation that she and Dell had, but mostly the eager words of his girlfriend, telling him that her order of the previous Friday had already arrived on base.

“Oh,  _good_! I’ll get these put away in my new workshop right away, with Gabriel’s help-  Yes, I’m sure that I trust Gabriel with these, Dell, have a little faith in him.  These will only become explosive when I mix them, anyway, so there’s not much to mistrust…  Heh, you can tell your two lovely children that they’ll get the  _very best_ fireworks I’ve  _ever_ made, especially for them!  …I’ll bet they’ll scream your ear off… Okay, thanks for the heads-up, Gabriel and I can take it from here, Dell.  …yeah, we’ll get those boxes put away and then we’ll go right to the respawn room – you remind me of my father but that doesn’t mean you  _are_ my father now, Dell.  Okay, get out of here, you  _big dolt_ , before Gabriel hears you say that about him-”

“What’s Dell sayin’ about me?”, he spoke loudly, poking his head around the corner – the rest of him didn’t follow, since he’d gotten a little  _too_ carried away before, with Sam practically sitting on his lap kissing him and pulling his shirt off inch by inch, and Dell didn’t need to see that – at which point the BLU engineer hastily said something as he walked off back to his own room, leaving Sam standing in the doorway with three large boxes that had so many warning labels pasted over them that the wood was barely visible anymore.  “…Your fireworks-making supplies?”, he asked superfluously as he took the box she handed him, placing his hands exactly where she had, allowing her to then place the second box on top of the first one.

“Yes. …Dell’s timing was-”

“Fuckin’ horrible, I know, but maybe it’s for the best, ya know I can’t quit gettin’ my hands all over you once I have ya in my arms… and we still need to show up for battle today or Dell and Jane kill us where we stand.  …Hey, this ain’t as heavy as it looks…”, he said once Sam had grabbed the second box and walked ahead of him through the BLU side of the compound, heading for the door outside.  The rest of BLU was still eating, but Tavish, who came softly staggering outside already, grinned at Sam and pulled the door open for her and Gabriel, taking a deep whiff of the scent that hung around the boxes. Gabriel had been around enough chemicals in his life to know the sickly scent of copper and the slightly tangy scent of potassium compounds, but the demoman clearly knew more of whatever was in the boxes that they held, because he sighed contentedly.

“Ah, some'o the good ol’ brimstone… been too blewdy long since aye smelled tha’, lasseh… so, yeh’re makin’ rockets?  If yeh need a hand-”

“Well, no – the idea is to make something beautiful, not just something that blows up in the sky.  This is going to be a very precise work… the right amounts of powder, the right combination of colour ingredients, the right wire and the right piece of cardboard of the right size in the right place… it’s more than just mixing and matching, it’s  _tweaking_ the compounds and  _imagining_ the starbursts before you’ve even started mixing the ingredients, it’s  _working your way back from a miracle to something you can make…_ oh, it’s  _pure magic_ and  _pure passion_ -” Gabriel felt the change in Sam rather than seeing it: her voice got somewhat lofty, her words chosen with careful deliberation to voice the sentiment just right even if her tone did that just fine.  It was more than clear that fireworks was the life and passion of his English pyrotechnician: and with that came a fond rush of happiness, washing over Gabriel unexpectedly and causing him to interrupt her.

“T'as le coeur plein de joie pour ton métier, mon ange, j'aime bien que t'es si joyeuse…  Your eyes sparkle like fireworks when ya even just think about it.  Whatever ya make, it’ll be fuckin’  _breathtaking_ , I’m sure of it.”  Tavish nodded gravely, the only thing that betrayed his inebriated state being the fact that his grin was a little too broad, and then voiced his agreement.

“Aye, ’m with Gae-brial on this.  Yoo look like yeh nae c'nsider yoorself alive without yer job, lass.  Ach, I have nae seen yoor work, but aye’m shoore yeh maeke raeth stunnin’ fireworks.  …See yeh in ten minutes!”, he said as Sam walked outside, waving the hand that held his bottle of scrumpy and sloshing some of its contents over the back of his hand: by the time the Scotsman’s curses were barely comprehensible anymore, Sam and Gabriel were softly laughing.

“…Ah, poor Tavish, he was just trying to be nice by waving at me, and he got rewarded by spilling his drink…”, Sam said, to which Gabriel only answered with a loud snort.

“Might do him good, that paint thinner he calls ‘scrumpy’ is a fuckin’ health hazard anyway.  …Donc, dis-moi…”, he said a little softer, his eyes going back to the box he had hoisted on his shoulder, “…how does a li'l girl go from wantin’ to be princesse du monde entier to wantin’ to become une pyrotechnicienne comme toi?” Just as he’d hoped, Sam’s soft chuckle followed his words, and her tone betrayed amusement as well as something soft and tender that he could never get enough of.

“I didn’t want to become 'princess of all the world’, Gabriel!  When I was a child, I wanted to become a famous writer!  …But the reason why I wanted to study pyrotechnics is simple.  I… my brother, Damien, left home when I was fifteen.  Up until that point, he’d been the one to protect me whenever I got scared, the one to comfort me when I felt sad… well, him and my dad, but with him it was different.  I used to crawl up on the foot-end of his bed when I was a toddler and there was a thunderstorm, and he’d read me stories to get me to fall asleep.  So when he left for his job in New York, with Neoplast, of course I missed him tremendously; and when he promised me that I could come over and visit him in the summer holidays, I was overjoyed.  I visited him at the Fourth of July.  It… well, it wasn’t the first time I’d seen fireworks, but the first time I’d seen  _so much_ fireworks, and I started commenting on how some of the rockets looked like palm trees and others looked like those big puffy dandelions that get blown apart by the wind… and Damien nods.  He didn’t think anything of it, I’m sure.  But when I got home, at the next career day, I asked my teacher what kind of studies you’d need to do to make fireworks, and the next thing I know I’m taking Advanced Chemistry and Advanced Mathematics classes and telling my mother that I knew what I wanted to do with my life.”  As always when she mentioned or even thought of her mother, his girlfriend frowned, but Gabriel felt more resolved than ever before to get her thinking about anything but the woman that had so readily accused her of the most horrible things.

“Pfeh, thank God ya listen to your heart first.”

“Well, my dad wasn’t opposed to the idea, he said that he had never thought about that as an option but to do what I loved.  And the moment I made my first little bottle rocket… it was a project for Advanced Chemistry, so it was just enough to whistle as it went up and then give the lightest bang ever, but to me…  _oh_ , to me it was  _magic come to life_.” Her voice once again got the lofty tone it’d held before, and this time Gabriel gladly let her go on.  “…My teacher saw it, too, I think, because he recommended reading up on the PGI, the International Pyrotechnics Guild – and it was via them that I got connected to the fireworks factory in Enschede, in Holland.  I studied there for two years, until my twenty-first, when I returned back home for a month because of Michael – but I got invited to follow a six month long training course by the winner of the Festival des Arts Pyrotechniques in Cannes, and you don’t turn down an invitation like that, not if you seriously want to devote your life to making fireworks.”  It was a testament to how deep her love for her profession was, Gabriel found, because it was the first time she mentioned her youngest brother without crying.  Instead, she  _smiled_ when thinking about her training in France, adding in a soft and somewhat breathless tone: “After that, I went back home for two months, together with my then-boyfriend that I’d met during my training course… who, funnily enough, was  _also_ called Gabriel-”

“Ah?” Gabriel found himself unable to  _not_ respond to that, and even less to keep the slight jealousy out of his tone, causing Sam to lightly chuckle again and give him a quick kiss on the shoulder before putting the box she’d been carrying down on the ground so she could open the door to the respawn room.

“Yes, well,  _he_ was even  _less_ of an angel than you are, mon amour – he cheated on me to land the job that  _I_ eventually got instead of him, even though I’d only filled in the application form for the heck of it.  …That job was with Katchan Fire Inc.  I learnt so much there, and in the end… ah, the last display I did for them, the New Year’s Rave in Melbourne… it was  _breathtaking_. Not just to see, but to know that  _I had made that happen_ …”

“Ah, j'suis curieux maintenant.  Fais-nous un show pyrotechnique merveilleux, mon ange.  Go all out for us, ya hear?  We wanna see  _all ya can do!_ …Not just me, too…”, he admitted as he deposited the box he’d been carryng on one of the workbenches inside the respawn room Sam occupied, taking care not to upset any of the other items laying on it since he knew that half of the things laying around the room were highly explosive: Sam noticed his extra care and rewarded him with a gentle smile.

“I know… Yaroslav nearly  _cried_ when I mentioned fireworks, and Siegfried looked at me like I’d grown an extra head.  Oh, and when I told Grant that I’d make fireworks-”

“I heard that, too.”, Gabriel said with a grin: his own team’s engineer had overheard her discussing the ingredients she’d ordered with Gabriel during the poker game and had asked  _loudly_ what she was going to do with  _extra explosives_ , causing the entire bar to go quiet and all men to look at her as she quickly explained the point of ordering three boxes’ worth of volatile and dangerous chemicals, at which point the engineer had started stammering apologies so profusely that he’d lost a hand that he had every right to win.  “…Well, he ended up payin’ for what he said.  His face when I got ya to order me a drink with  _his_ twenty dollar note!”  As he turned back to his girlfriend, smiling broadly, seeing her eyes sparkle with joy as she looked over the room where she’d be making not just the explosives the teams needed but also the fireworks they’d surely enjoy, Gabriel felt as good as he’d ever felt, something he communicated gladly by wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her in for a light, loving kiss.  “…Now, c'mon, we’d better run or we’ll miss the start of battle, and then Grant’s gonna have our hides.  And Dell might skin me alive – did he mention the way ya looked when you opened the door earlier?”

“Well, he did notice that I hadn’t been getting  _dressed_ , that much I saw, but he didn’t say a word about it.  Probably figured you’d punch his lights out if he did mention it.”

“Well, I’d hold back for your sake, mon ange…”, Gabriel said, squeezing her a little tighter against himself despite his better judgement, adding in a soft tone as he pulled up the rolling door to the battlefield again: “…but today I’m only holdin’ back until battle’s over – you’d better hurry back once that horn sounds, or I won’t mind where you are and who’s still with ya.”

“Mmm, Gabriel, I’ll be there after battle, nothing could keep me away from you…”, Sam admitted, giving his buttocks a light squeeze before walking in front of him, teasingly swaying her hips but keeping well out of reach no matter how much he hurried to catch up, laughing lightly along with him all the way back to their room.

 

“Sam!!” Dell’s shout made the BLU pyro’s head shoot up from the pillow. Next to her, Gabriel reacted similarly, though with a fond and completely understandable curse.

“ _Putain!!_ ”

“D-dell, give us a minute!”

“What in th'world’s up?  ’s Almost eight an’ yeh still ain’t ready!  Did yew an’ Dante misbehave 'gain?”, the engineer shouted – and as if he sensed the turmoil and wished to add to it, Grant’s voice sounded from the other side.

“Gabe, son, yew still in 'ere?  Sam ain’t distractin’ yeh, is she?”

“ _For fuck’s sake_ , we overslept, an’ the first engineer I see standin’ in the hallway is gonna get introduced to my goddamn Axtinguisher face first, t'comprends?  Give us five fuckin’ minutes to wash, brush our teeth, throw our uniforms on an’ run to respawn!  And the first man that even  _thinks_ we were screwin’ each other dies  _slowly_!” No answer came from the men that had so rudely awakened them, prompting Gabriel to get up out of bed with another, albeit softer, groan and speak to her quickly: “…J'suis si désolé… stupid fuckin’ alarm clock must’ve died…”  His glare at the nonresponsive alarm clock and the fact that Dell and Grant were being deathly quiet outside made Sam gently kiss Gabriel on the cheek before walking through the door for some quick cleaning-up, her hairbrush and tooth brush already in her hand.

“It’s nothing.  Let’s just… hurry up.  We’ll have to skip breakfast-”

“Well, I hope ya won’t skip our morning kiss, though…”, Gabriel said, his mood improving slightly when she grinned and winked at him, not needing to voice the fact that she couldn’t ever leave him without their usual kiss right before leaving for their respective sides of the battlefield.  Hurrying through their usual morning ritual of getting ready and suiting up, they still managed to convey their affection for one another in hasty brushes of fingers over arms or appreciative glances, and when Sam kissed Gabriel, the RED pyro even managed to make it a kiss that caused her to feel dizzy and out of breath.  “…J'te verrai en bataille, mon ange de feu.”, he admitted, and she nodded, quickly grabbing her gear before running over to the respawn room where her colleagues all cast her questioning glances that made her feel slightly upset.  

“…Look, I overslept-”, she started after quickly checking her suit over to make sure she had it properly zipped up – with how hastily she and Gabriel had gotten dressed, it was always possible that she’d only done her suit up half of the way, she supposed, but then Arsène shook his head and spoke in a soothing but slightly worried tone.

“Non, that ees not why we were lookink, mon amie… you, uh, 'aven’t brought your fireaxe…”, he said, which caused Sam to blink.

“What d'you mean, I haven’t brought my fireaxe?  It’s right he-”  She reached for her axe, to pull it out from its loop on her belt, only for her hand to close around something that most definitely wasn’t an axehead, causing her to halt in the middle of her sentence in sheer surprise.  Looking down at her side, she saw she had instead brought the sledgehammer that Graeme had used two months ago to clear the tiles away from the walls and floor of what were now her and Gabriel’s living quarters.  “Oh, _Christ…_ ”, she groaned.  She’d been so hurried – and perhaps a little distracted by Gabriel, if she was absolutely honest, because her boyfriend had, of course, been sleeping next to her stark naked like he enjoyed doing, which meant that he’d been very proudly displaying himself to her while they cleaned themselves up a little before throwing their fireproof uniforms on – that she’d taken the wrong item with her.  “…I should head back and-”  Just as she meant to say 'and grab my axe’, the horn sounded and Dell shook his head.

“’s too late fer tha’, Sam, li'l lady – figure it’ll do the trick jus’ fine, tha’ there hammer.  …C'mon, if'n yeh don’t wanna go inter the frontline without'cher fireaxe, yeh might ’s well come sit with me.” Sam shook her head in protest, voicing her main objection the next second.

“I can’t stay with you all day, they need me on the frontlines as well – Gabriel’s sure as hell going to exploit the fact that I’m not there and then we’ll lose-”

“Well, ah ain’t said yeh gotta stick with me all day, li'l lady.  Y'kin run on over back tuh base at lunchtime an’ grab tha’ there axe, it ain’t gon’ run away.  Now c'mon – it’ll take RED some time tuh figure out they ain’t seein’ yeh, an’ in the meantime yeh kin make us some well-done spah if'n Pierre’s enough 'f a fool ter try anythin’.” Groaning in frustration even though frying Pierre’s cloaked behind wasn’t an altogether unwelcome prospect for her morning, Sam nodded and motioned for him to lead the way, which he did, walking the two of them over to one of his more unconventional spots: a small outcropping in the rockface where some supplies lay waiting to be picked up, which he only did after placing his dispenser so he could instantly after start building up his sentry as well.  They were still near the respawn room, nowhere near the control point they were supposed to capture – it was the same spot where Gabriel and Billy had come visiting him before, she realised with a soft grin – but it was a good spot for moving ahead to stunt the RED team’s response to their attack a little later.  Against the background, she could hear the sounds of explosions, meaning that the rest of their team had run up against the REDs already, and she sighed again.

“…What a start of the day…”

“Hey, it ain’t yer fault that yeh woke up too late…”

“It isn’t Gabriel’s fault either, we need a new alarm clock…”, she admitted, looking a little helplessly at Dell who got the hint and rolled his eyes, something Sam could still see clearly despite the goggles he’d pulled on in front of his eyes.

“Y'ain’t need no new alarm clock… bring it over t'me later tuhday an’ ah’ll try an’ fix 'er up fer yew an’ Dante.  Jus’ don’t go expectin’ no miracles-”

“I’ll stop expecting miracles the very day you stop  _giving_ me miracles, Dell, my dear.  …now, focus on building up that sentry.” Sam pulled her gas mask in front of her face before dousing the hallway and their small 'nest’ in burning petrol, half-expecting an invisible form to burst into flames but getting no such effect.  She kept doing regular checks every minute, but after half an hour of no results, that frequency diminished until she only checked every five minutes or right after the sound of footsteps in their hallway.  John had come running up to them once, trying to fire rockets at them from outside the sentry’s detection range, but her airblast had knocked them back at him and in the end he’d been blown apart by one of his own missiles, after which he hadn’t returned.  The sounds of battle didn’t diminish from outside, and they didn’t move closer to them, which meant that the team was holding fast at their position.  The control point they were fighting over was still being disputed, with neither team managing to push the others out of position.

“…’s gon’ be a long, hard day, ah reckon…”, Dell said next to her, using his wrench to uncap a cooled bottle of beer that he then handed to her, causing her to sigh as she lifted off her gas mask again so she could take a sip.  It tasted a lot more pleasant than the lager she was used to, and a quick look at the bottle proved that it was non-alcoholic beer.

“I knew you wouldn’t drink regular lager in battle…”, she admitted, causing the engineer to chuckle softly.

“’s Comp'ny rules, ah’m afraid.  Tav’ and Graeme ain’t allowed tuh drink  _full-strength_ scrumpy in battle neither-”

“Which is why they drink it  _before_ battle starts, no doubt.”, Sam finished his sentence, rolling her eyes and leaning back against the rock wall just when Archie and Jane came running up to them, both slightly out of breath.

“Dell, place your dispenser and your sentry closer to the point now – we’ve just pushed the REDs out of sight but they’ll return in a minute and we need the backup-”  However, suddenly, the sentry started beeping loudly, a split second before Dell gasped and fell forward, the butterfly knife still embedded in his back.  Pierre looked at Sam in shock, trying to reach for his pistol instead, but Sam’s flamethrower had already roared to life and the spy died with a loud, very pained cry.  “Dammit!  That sentry’s history!”, Jane cursed, sounding just as angry as he looked, and Sam nodded, groaning and looking at the sapper in frustration before doing the first thing that came to mind and pulling the sledgehammer from her belt, swinging it down at the sapper, figuring that it would at least make her feel less upset with the situation.

To her surprise, and Jane’s utter befuddlement, the sapper broke.

“W-what the…?!” Sam stammered, looking at the sledgehammer in her hands in clear disbelief.  “That… isn’t supposed to happen, right? Only engineers can remove sappers, right?”, she asked the soldier. He was the most savvy of the group when it came to the rules of battle, and he shrugged.

“I wouldn’t know… I’ve never taken interest in that side of battle, private-”

“What in tarnation?”  Dell’s voice issued from behind them, preceding the engineer walking up to his sentry and quickly fixing what damage the sapper had done to its inner mechanisms before checking it over again.  “What happened?  Ah didn’t dream Pierre sappin’ mah sentry, did ah?”, he asked, and Sam meant to answer and say what had happened, but Jane beat her to it, his voice gruff but the tone of it disbelieving.

“Sam swung that hammer she carries at it and it  _broke_ , truckie.  That’s not supposed to happen, right?”  Dell lifted his hardhat and goggles, scratching his bald head and looking at the sapper, shaking his head – but then he looked at Sam’s hammer and chuckled, surprising both the pyro and the soldier.

“…Well, normally, ah’d say that yeah, it’s not s'posed tuh happen, but… Sam, c'n yew check yer hammer real quick, see if'n it’s got some kind'f symbol on the head or somethin’?”  Sam nodded, quickly scanning over the handle before moving to the head, where she saw some words imprinted on it.

“It says here 'Homewrecker – demolition supplies’-”, she said, which instantly got Dell speaking up with a soft grin.

“Ah thought so.  Must be Lander’s old hammer – he had one jus’ like this that were made especially fer helpin’ a pahro protect engineers. …Looks like yeh got at least somethin’ from yer predecessor, then.”  Sam looked at the hammer in her hands with apprehension, but then, as Dell tossed the broken sapper into a corner of the hallway, she found the weight of it feel reassuring.

“Well, maybe I’ll hang around here a little longer then.  And if Pierre remains none the wiser…”

“He won’t be unaware fer long, word gits 'round on this 'ere battlefield fast.”, Dell said, though he said it with a grin.  “But hell, now he knows that if'n he kills me an’ saps mah sentry, he ain’t in the clear jus’ yet.  …So, Jane, what d'yew say, kin yeh spare Sam on offense tuhday?”  The soldier scratched his chin and then shrugged.

“If Dante shows his face an’ pushes us back, she’s back out there with the rest of us.”, he warned, and Sam nodded, patting the soldier on the shoulder.

“You know I won’t let Gabriel have all the fun… heh, thank you.  Just come and give a call when you need me.  I’ll be right here keeping Dell out of Pierre’s hands, and his sentries off the scrapyard.” There was no trace left of the resentment the soldier had felt for outing himself and the engineer to the rest of the team and the world, something further evidenced in the half-salute he gave her which the pyro answered with a proper and respectful salute that put energy into Jane Doe’s step as he ran back to the frontline.  Turning back to Dell, Sam winked at him and shouldered the sledgehammer, leaning back against the wall again.  “…So, while we’re waiting for Pierre to reappear, maybe you should tell me about Lander and how he used this in battle – because if I hang on to this hammer, I might as well learn how to kick arse with it…”

 

“Gabriel, are you still up?”  The truthful answer was 'no’ – or, at least, it had been until that second, because Gabriel’s head shot up from the pillow, noticing how his book had fallen from his hands and onto the ground – but he was quick to answer otherwise.

“Y-yeah, of course, mon ange…”

“Liar, I could hear you snore from the hallway… but it’s sweet of you to wake up just for me.  I lost track of time-”, Sam defended herself as she walked into the bedroom, which led to Gabriel interrupting her hastily.

“Doesn’t matter, Sammy, I know how ya don’t mind anything else while you’re makin’ your special treats for us all.  An’ the more time ya put in those fireworks, the more they’ll shine.  J'sais que tu veux que tout soit parfait, et j'suis sûr que tout soit parfait.”, he spoke softly, earning him a broad smile from his girlfriend right before she lifted her shirt over her head.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence – I’d almost say 'I’ll work extra hard to make that a certainty’ but you might have complaints if I keep coming back here when you’re already asleep.”  Gabriel meant to shake his head and say that she could come in to sleep as late as she wanted as long as he’d wake up next to her, but right at that moment his girlfriend shimmied out of her track pants and her panties both at once and turned back around to him completely naked, making his throat feel dry and constricted all of a sudden and turning his words into a soft mumble.  “…Oh, you wouldn’t mind?”, she teased, taking a step back and looking at him, which made his eyes  _really_ wander over her figure.  She looked just as amazing as she always did, but in the soft light of his bedside lamp, her every curve looked like it was begging for his fingertips to explore.  Groaning, he shook his head, but before he could speak up in protest, his girlfriend teased him further: “You don’t mind not getting a kiss goodnight?”

“ _Merde_ , Sammy, don’t you fuckin’ tease me like that, ya know I can’t  _not_ miss ya…”

“Do go on.”, she said with a playful wink at him, licking her lips slowly and making his own lips yearn to press to hers, or to greedily lavish attention anywhere on her he could reach.

“Ah, mon ange, you really need me to say that I don’t wanna go to sleep without you by my side?  Ya really need me to say that it’s shameful how much I  _need_ you sometimes, and how frustrated I get that you aren’t here to indulge me?  Ya really need to hear how I fuckin’  _burn_ for ya, how you’re the only thing that can put out my fire?”  Sam grinned and nodded, taking a minute step closer: Gabriel could feel his entire body ache by then, need coursing through his veins and turning his blood to white-hot boiling plasma.  It was that need, that longing for the woman that was making his being long for the completion only she could bring to him, that promoted him to speak huskily to her: “Ya know how bad I want you, Sammy, don’t deny it… ya know how I wanna kiss your breath away, and then keep kissin’ ya, keep running my hands all over ya, to hold you close and to drive you out of your mind, mon ange de feu… you know how I want nothin’ more than to make you  _moan_ and  _plead_ for me… t'sais comment j'veux toujours te faire dire mon nom comme ci c'est la réponse sure tout question posé…  T'sais que j'veux toujours te faire l'amour, n'importe que ça dure cinq minutes ou toute la nuit… et comment j'aime quand nous durerons toute la nuit en touchant, en embrassant partout où nous pouvons penser…” Each sentence he spoke got her to take a step closer until she sat down on top of the sheets, straddling him, her body within reach: he wasted no time at all in pulling her closer, pushing his hips up to grind his erection against her even though there was a thick duvet in between them.  “Ah,  _merde_ , j'te veux  _trop fort_ … I can’t fuckin’ keep off ya now.  So what if I was asleep before? I’m wide awake now – wide awake and  _in need_ , Sammy…”  Instantly after he’d ground out his confession of need, he started kissing the soft skin of her neck greedily, giving her a lovebite right underneath her jaw, making her whimper and roll her hips down against the duvet right over his by now aching member. However, instead of finding the cover a hindrance and moving to push it away so he and Sam could press against each other without anything to separate their skin from the other’s touch, he grinned and ran his hands over her back instead.  “Tu veux pas me joindre dessous la couette?  With you underneath it with me, things’ll definitely heat up in a  _flash_ , hun… oh, I am  _on fire_ just for you…”

“I  _might_ indulge you…”, she admitted, kissing him as deeply and passionately as she could, and he gladly let her – the mention of her indulging him made his entire body feel like it would just incinerate the duvet altogether, and the sheer heat they were already generating between the two of them made him wonder whether the thing wouldn’t just combust in a burst of flame and the scent of burnt feathers – but he had a mission that he wouldn’t forget, so while they kissed, he allowed one hand to move away from her back and down to her stomach, his fingers slowly caressing lower, to her folds.  Once he found her privates and started to gently run his middle and index finger over them, she groaned into their kiss.  “Oh, Gabriel…”, she breathed as soon as they detached, sitting up a little more again to allow him better access, which got him to grin and press his fingers into the sensitive, delicate skin underneath them a little harder, prompting her to repeat her statement in an infinitely more heated tone of voice:  _“Oh, Gabriel… mmmmyeah…_ ”

“J'veux te  _voir_ te perdre, mon ange… mon  _âme…_ My night isn’t gonna be complete until you’re riding out your high – on my fingers, on my dick, on my  _face_ , n'importe, j'veux seulement que tu te trouve plus aujourd'hui…”

“Gabriel, d-don’t… don’t say it like that…”, Sam whimpered, blushing deeply as she looked him over.  “I want you to enjoy this, too – p-pull the duvet away, let me-”

“Oh, non, non, mon ange, I’m not letting ya  _touch_ me until you came at least once.  I wanna see how long I can last seein’ you enjoy yourself.  I might even get there watchin’ you right now –  _fuck it_ , you are too hot.”  Sam meant to reply, he knew, but right at that moment, he pressed his two fingers into her all-too-receptive nethers, using his thumb to continue his ministrations of before; the resulting half-squeal it drew from her was more than pleasure-filled, it was  _overjoyed_ , and he groaned.  “Ahh, Sam… fuck, when ya moan like that, it’s almost as good as givin’ you a good  _hard_ lay-”

“Oh,  _Gabriiiieeeel…_ I want you to take me, p-please, ahh, pleeeeeaaaaase…”  His girlfriend’s voice was barely above a whisper, wavering dangerously, and Gabriel shook his head teasingly.

“Nuh-uh, j'veux que tu viens en premier, mon ange… and  _then_ you can do what ya want with me – blow me, take me, jerk me off-  _oh fuck…_ ” Sam clearly wanted him to get on with making her lose her mind if that was what it’d take for him to allow her to touch him: she drove herself down onto his fingers, rolling her hips right into his hand and half-drenching his palm with her juices.  In return, Gabriel pushed his thumb right into the overheated skin of her folds, willing himself not to relent now, not when she clearly was as close to release as she was.  “J'te  _jure_ , t'es tout que j'ai toujours voulu, et tellement plus… Mmm, mon âme…”, he muttered as she repeated her impatient grind of her hips into his hand, again and again, clearly seeking release with the same tenacity as he did, and it didn’t take long for her to gasp for breath as her hips steadily rolled down onto him with enough force to press his hand right against the obvious bulge in the fabric of the duvet, which in turn gave some nice friction to complement the pleasure her moans and panting breaths brought him.

“Ahhh-a-ahhhh… Gabrieeeellll…”, Sam said, balancing precariously between climax and stubborn refusal to comply with his plan, and then she did the one thing he  _hadn’t_ counted on and wrapped one of her hands around the one that was pleasuring her so insistently, two of her  _own_ fingers adding to his and sending her inner muscles clamping around all four of the invading digits as she finally let go with a half-shout of his name that made Gabriel wonder whether his heart was still beating what with the sudden  _stream_ of blood that seemed to rush from his brain to his groin.  However, he wasn’t given enough time to contemplate it.  “F-fuck, I won’t…”, Sam muttered, pulling his hand away ungently before very swiftly getting off him, pulling the duvet away and exposing him, after which she straddled him again and very unsubtly sank his length inside of her deeply with another extremely loud groan.  Her movements were sharp on top of him, he found – sharp and  _eager_ , and he put his hands on her hips  in an attempt to show exactly how glad he was with her actions just as much to try and hold on to what little control he still had after having teased her so much. “I’m-not-go-ing-to-la-a-a-aast…”, she ground out in time with her downward movements, causing Gabriel to somehow push back the haze of pleasure she was quickly suffocating his mental faculties with and look her over half-surprised.

“S-si vite déjà?  T-t'as juste-”

“Tais-toi, mmmerde, et laisse-moi-”  It was the French curse that got Gabriel to grab Sam and roll them over so he was on top of her: any and all thoughts of  _not_ going all out with her went up in a blaze of passion as he lifted her legs over his shoulders even while he thrusted into her, being rewarded by a loud exclamation that he didn’t bother listening to.

“When ya curse  _in French_ , damn it, that  _turns me on so fucking much,_ Sammy… ah, damn, I need to do ya roughly now, fuck ya  _sooo hard and rough…_ ”, he muttered as he drove himself into her again and again, paying no heed to her body shaking against his own: he acted out his need on her, plain and simple, the feel of her warmth and moistness around him, squeezing him as if intending to  _absorb_ him, driving him not just up the wall but making his head spin like a top. Vaguely, he was aware of her hands tangling in his hair, squeezing his shoulders, her nails scraping over his lower back, her body shivering against his own, but none of it mattered in light of the tension that grew and  _grew_ inside of his body like a ravenous beast waiting to tear him apart.  “Ahh, Sam,  _Sam_ , r-rien ne vaut à cela, rien- _nnnh_  ne vaut  _à toi…_ rien ne vaut à te baiser comme ci…”  Sam’s answer was to arch her back, pressing her hips right into his next deep, hard thrust, and that unwound them both like cheap string: with a loud curse, Gabriel lost control over his body, nearly blacking out with the sheer pleasure that washed over him at the feeling of their simultaneous release – a pleasure that was both physical and emotional, he found as he finally regained use of his limbs again.  When he looked down at Sam after letting her legs down again, seeing her look up at him with eyes dark with residual passion but above all clear amazement at how powerful their lovemaking had been, the first thing he could do, before collapsing or even speaking to voice his own amazement, was to kiss her, lightly to allow them both to catch their breath again but still with clear affection and satisfaction.  She closed her eyes and mumbled something into their kiss which he interpreted as either 'you’re too heavy on top of me’ or 'I can’t breathe’ and so he moved off her, laying back down on his side of the bed, but not without wrapping an arm around her and moving so he lay pressed against her. Clearly, though, she seemed to miss him, if her turning to him and kissing him in return was any indication. The contact of their lips made his soul feel alight with something that was more than just love, more than just passion: something that had him feel like he was dosed with some kind of drug that both made him feel detached of reality and at the same time made him so acutely aware of the path his blood followed in his veins and the way his heartbeat accelerated again.

“…Oh, Gabriel, never stop being so bloody perfect to me…”, Sam sighed after their kiss, which again prompted the RED pyro to grin.

“Not my intention, mon âme…  J'veux te jamais décevoir.  Jamais d'ma vie, mon ange.  …I don’t ever wanna disappoint you.”, he added in English, chuckling when she rolled her eyes and kissed him again, less gently than before, while wrapping one of her legs around his hip.  “Mmm…”, he gladly groaned into the kiss, bringing one hand up to tangle in her hair and the other to rest on her behind, enticing her to kiss him with even  _more_ abandon, which got his head spinning again and his body to fire up as if he hadn’t been feeling completely spent only a second before.  “Ah,  _merde_ , on n'arrive jamais à dormir ce nuit-ci…”, he muttered, though he nullified his words by the way he rolled the both of them over so Sam lay on top of him, enabling him to run his hands over her soft skin wherever he wanted.  When he did just that, caressing down from the back of her head to her neck and shoulder and then on to her breasts, making Sam’s breathing hitch and her eyes sparkle as she looked down at him, he found himself in no mood to complain anymore, instead grinning at her promisingly.  “…Well, if we ain’t gonna sleep tonight, then we might as well  _take all night_ … j'veux te faire l'amour lentement, mon ange… not rough like before, but  _slowly_ an’  _like we don’t got a care in the fuckin’ world_ -” He supposed it was karma that, just when he’d said those words, his cellphone started ringing.  The sound of the loud rock song he’d chosen as a ringtone threw him off enough to make his hands falter, which in turn got Sam to groan.

“ _It’s half past eleven in the evening,_ who even  _picks up a phone at this hour_?!” When Gabriel groaned and meant to pick up his phone, she shook her head.  “Let them leave a message and focus on what’s important right now.  You were making promises I want you to  _keep_ , mon âme…”  Another kiss, deep and demanding on her part and soon on his part as well, made the soft 'bleep’ of his cellphone, indicating that he’d received a message, fall away to the background as he set about fulfilling his previous words to his girlfriend to make love to her slowly and reverently, like nothing else in the world mattered but the heat and pleasure they gave each other under the covers.


	33. Turned over a new leaf (then tore right through it)

Chapter 32: Turned over a new leaf (then tore right through it)

 

“Mmmh…” Sam grumbled when the alarm clock, which had strategically been placed on her side of the bed, started blaring music in the quiet hours of the morning.  Pushing the ‘snooze’ button, she turned around in the bed, trying desperately to get lulled back to sleep by the warmth of the little cocoon the mattress and the duvet formed around her, even if that sleep would only last ten more minutes.  Next to her, Gabriel grumbled similarly as he turned around to face her, wrapping one arm around her and pulling her into his form greedily.

“Hmmnnn nnnshhh…”, he sighed inarticulately – it was that more than anything that made Sam grin and sleep elude from her grasp just a little further, forcing her to change strategy and just lay in Gabriel’s gentle but unbreakable hold on her, watching her lover in his sleep.  He looked untroubled even though his brow was furrowed: his hair was tousled, even the wiry hairs on his chin, and he had grit in the corners of his eyes that she had to will herself not to brush away, since doing so would wake him up.  Other than that, his deep even breathing and the feel of his naked form ever so gently pressed against hers made her feel serene, even more so when Gabriel sighed out her name, so softly that it was barely even a whisper and more of an exhale but clearly  _her_ name, spoken like it was the the root of the world.   _“Sammy…”_ She couldn’t help but grin so broadly that her cheeks hurt of the motion – even as the alarm clock started blaring music again, she still grinned, turning in her lover’s hold to press 'snooze’ again and then turning back.  But when she looked at Gabriel again, she looked right into his deep, mesmerizing blue eyes that displayed, above all, love, with just a dash of amusement to offset that fondness a little.

“Ah, good morning, monsieur Dantan, aren’t you just looking like the cat that’s been put with the cream.”, she said, winking at him.

“Bonjour à toi, mon ange Samantha – oh, if only I were a cat, then I’d get to sit in your lap all day and get ya to rub my belly whenever I fuckin’ wanted you to.  …Or then  _you_ ’d be a cat too, and we’d keep the guys up all night with all our meowin’.  …En passant, saviez-vous que les chats ont essentiellement un vrai gros saison des amours?”, he said, and Sam rolled her eyes.

“You’d be a real good tomcat, Gabriel, mon amour-”, she started, only for him to kiss her on the cheek and whisper into her ear.

“You’d bet I’d be, and I’d never let any other tomcat sniff around you, Sammy.  T'es toute à moi.”  His next kiss landed on her lips and she indulged in the moment of tenderness.  Still, she could feel that Gabriel wasn’t exactly thinking pure thoughts what with one of his hands wandering slowly down her back and his tongue tracing hers ever so insistently, and she found she had to use every ounce of willpower she held to pull back from him and grab his hand off her rear.

“Hey-hey-hey, it’s a day of battle today, mon amour, no fooling around in the bed. We don’t have time.”

“Aw, not even for a quick li'l fuck?  I mean, we could skip breakfast… C'est de ton attention dont je suis affamé…”, Gabriel pleaded, nuzzling her neck and making Sam groan as fire swept the pit of her stomach.  Interpreting her vocalization for exactly what it meant, Gabriel grinned and nipped at the skin of her neck before adding: “…See?  Ya want me just as bad…  Certes, tu ne pense pas à me laisser courir toute la journée tout embrasé comme ci, non?”

“Oh,  _damn_ it, Gabriel…”, she found herself saying, allowing him to pull her against himself and then on top of him, showing just how quick he wanted them to be as he rolled his hips up into her, ending himself up embedded inside her yet again.  “Ahh…”, she sighed when her lover’s hands caressed up her back and then down her sides to come to rest on her hips, his fingertips pressing into the skin of her behind as he thrust up into her only a few times, breathing just as hard as she was.  It seemed to be like his desire was more than enough to get the both of them going and after what felt like only seconds, Gabriel bit his lip to hold back a loud moan as he pulled her down right into the last shivering roll of his hips, holding her tightly.  “…Ah, damn…”, Sam sighed, looking at the alarm clock and seeing that it still had two more minutes to go before their last warning, a thought that got her to grin.  “Well, you were certainly right when you said it’d be quick…”

“Think it’d be a new record?”, he asked, and Sam snorted.

“It’s not a competition, Gabriel.  …Now come on, I’ll  _definitely_ need to shower now that you’ve managed to make me messy again.  Promise you’ll behave in the shower for once?”, she asked, and he shrugged, showing that he couldn’t make any promises.  “…Well, I’m heading for a shower, at least…”, she said teasingly, knowing that Gabriel wouldn’t be able to resist the suggestion of showering together with her even if he was expected to behave; indeed, her boyfriend hastily got up out of the bed as well and grabbed fresh underwear and his usual showering supplies in a heartbeat to be able to enjoy a shower alongside her, which went surprisingly okay. Gabriel did wash her back and spent a few seconds longer than strictly necessary running his hands over her behind, but apart from that and the way he blushed when she motioned for him to lean his head down so she could shampoo his hair, nothing out of the ordinary took place, so that they were still able to eat their breakfast without having to hurry.  However, as they sat down for their caramel-covered pancakes, Gabriel suddenly rose again, walking over to the small side table that stood next to their bedroom door where they laid their keys and their mobile phones.

“I nearly forgot, I got a call last night… gonna see who it was that thought eleven at night was a good hour to call me…”  Sam nodded softly, focusing on rolling up the first pancake on her plate and cutting it into bitesize bits, paying no attention to the incomprehensible words issuing from Gabriel’s mobile into his ear; but the moment Sam saw Gabriel’s expression when she looked up again, she knew that whatever he’d heard was upsetting him.  She could see it in the frown on his features and the forlorn look in his eyes, the droop in his shoulders, the sudden deep breath he took and the sigh he exhaled… she could see fear, plain as day, and that was worrying.

“Gabriel, mon amour, what’s the matter?”, she asked, prompting her boyfriend to look at her, eyes still wide, and then groan.

“Ah, merde, Sammy… it’s… that call last night, when we were goin’ for round two-”  The thought brought a smile to her face, and it did manage to push back Gabriel’s apprehension for a second, she noticed. Which it should, because she could’ve sworn day was already breaking outside when they finally had curled up and decided to fall asleep basking in the haze of enjoyment that blanketed their senses. However, Gabriel didn’t smile for long, and when he grew serious again, so did she.  “…That call was your brother, Damien.”

“What, Damien, calling you?  Why…?”

“He didn’t say a lot, just said 'Gabriel, I’ve got them’… and then-”

“The contact info of your father and your sister.”, Sam said quietly, feeling her lover’s apprehension transmit to herself as well all of a sudden.  Gabriel hadn’t given much thought to his father and his sister anymore, instead focusing fully on his med regimen change, which admittedly was going smoothly.  Apart from a few nights where he hadn’t been able to sleep and one instance where Sam had been held back from battle because Gabriel had fallen asleep where he stood in the respawn room and no one dared wake him up, there hadn’t been a lot of trouble with the decrease in his meds.  But to say that it was going perfectly would be optimistic to the point of blindness, she knew.  Gabriel had been a little less even-tempered as of late, sometimes looking brooding and sometimes smiling without there really being a reason.  Leaving her breakfast, she rose and walked up to him, throwing her arms around him and kissing his shoulder as she always did when he looked down.  “…You don’t need to worry about their reaction-”, she tried, but he shook his head, placing his hands on her shoulders and looking at her with clear anguish in his eyes.

“But I do!  J'ai tout merdé, j'le sais!  J'les ai quitté… j'les ai blessé…”, he muttered, and Sam had to bite her lip to hold in a sob of her own when thick tears rolled down her boyfriend’s cheeks. She couldn’t say that he hadn’t hurt his father and sister, because for all she knew he  _had_ done so: she didn’t know the man and the woman that he’d left behind, having nothing to go on but a few photos that her lover had held onto and some stories he’d told her.  And above all, she didn’t want to be optimistic only to have his heart broken when his father turned out to be angry, or his sister turned out to react vehemently.  “…See, Sammy?  T'peux même pas me dire que j'ai tort.  Donc j'ai raison… j'ai…”

“Non, Gabriel, tu n'as pas tout merdé, mon amour.  Ils peuvent être fachés, ou te dire que tu les a blessé, leur a fait mal…  Mais ils t'aiment encore, j'en suis sûre.  Je te le jure!”, she said, her voice high and her hands squeezing his upper arms, but her boyfriend shook his head with an air of deep mourning.

“J'peux pas… j'veux bien les appeler mais j'peux pas…  Je veux pas entendre leur tristesse, leur douleur… j'mourrais s'ils sont fachés… j'peux pas…”, he muttered, and Sam sighed, taking his mobile from his hands and closing it gently and deliberately.

“Tu ne dois pas leur appeler maintenant, mon amour… you don’t have to call them right now.  You don’t even have to call them today if you don’t want that.  But  _call them_ , okay?  I’m certain – absolutely certain, even! - that all they’ve been waiting for for the past ten years is to hear from you.  Just to know you’re alive and well.  …Et si tu ne le peux pas faire pour eux, fais-le pour toi-même.  Not knowing if they love you still… that’s got to hurt.  Ton coeur mérite le savoir, mon amour, mon  _âme_. You deserve to know, at least.  And you deserve a second chance with them.”  Sighing, she looked at their breakfast and then at her watch, shaking her head.  “…We… should get going now.  Will it be okay, battling, or should I call the Administrator-”

“No, I… I wanna fight now.  Take my mind off le malheur que je sens.” Sam nodded, kissing her boyfriend on the cheek softly – he responded to it only half-heartedly, making her bite her lip and resolve to have a quick talk with one of Gabriel’s team – Grant, Rudolf, Radovan or even Billy – to make sure the taller pyro didn’t get beaten up too badly.

 

“ _NNNNNHHHH!”_  The loud but incomprehensible cry behind him caused Gabriel to look around, seeing Sam go down with a butterfly knife still sticking from her back, the blood disappearing into thin air before it got a chance to even stain the ground underneath her body.  Pierre sighed, straightening his tie and his sleeves before taking out a rag and cleaning off the female pyro’s blood from his knife.

“…You 'ave to be careful, Gabriel, mon ami… Samantha 'as kept close to you all zee day today.  Eet feels a leetle as eef she ees jalouse.”, the spy said, and Gabriel rolled his eyes.  It would be a lie to not concede that Sam had kept close to him all day that day, and it’d be even more of a falsitude to deny that she didn’t have a good reason to do so.  Sighing, he pushed up his gas mask and looked Pierre in the eye.

“So what if she wants to be the only one today that toasts my ass?”

“…Mon dieu, you 'ave been cryink!  Mon ami, tell me, what 'as 'appened? Did you and Sam 'ave zee fallink out?  Do you 'ave zee troubles with zee medicine change?”

“No, man, no…”, Gabriel ground out, rolling his eyes and intending to pull his gas mask on again, but the spy didn’t relent, his tone concerned.

“Did you drink again, ees dat eet?”

“Mais non, Pierre, now back the fuck off, this ain’t your business-”, the pyro tried again, and still the Frenchman persisted.

“You will 'ave to forgeeve me for zee intrusion, mon ami, I only am concerned-”  It was that one word, 'concerned’, that suddenly rubbed Gabriel the wrong way, and he exploded, throwing his gas mask down and squeezing his hands to fists.

“ _Merde, arrêtes à me taquiner comme ci, Pierre, c'est pas de tes affaires!_ Nothing’s wrong with me an’ Sammy, I didn’t drink, I ain’t fuckin’ depressed or anything – stop fuckin’ buttin’ in into things that don’t have anything to do with you, for fuck’s sake!!”  Glaring at the spy, he noticed with some grim satisfaction the way the man’s face paled, but then, as the anger drained from him again, the man’s whispered words made his heart ache again.

“Merde, she was right before… whatever eet ees that 'as 'appened, moi et Grant and our docteur, we need to watch you-”  Before he knew it, Gabriel was crying again, soundlessly like before, the sudden ache in his heart making him feel like he was being pulled apart on the inside.  Sam had been following him all day that day, yes, but it hadn’t been to kill him but to keep an eye on him.  To keep him safe. In the two hours they’d been battling so far, she’d died by crit rocket twice, and once by thirteen syringes of morphine being pumped into her by Rudolf – and each of those three times, it had taken her only five minutes to find him again.  She’d had to double back a few times to keep Pierre away from Dell, but each of those times, she’d been tailing him within a matter of minutes again.  All in all, her dedication to making sure his grief didn’t get him killed was second to none.  Not even Billy, who had also noticed that he wasn’t feeling his best, had shown his face to him at all apart from a few chance meetings in respawn; not even Grant, whose wizened eyes had rested on him and whose expression showed that he felt the burden he was carrying around, had approached him at all.  But with that realization came the certainty that she hadn’t been alone.  Grant, though he hadn’t approached him, had surprisingly left his machines behind a couple of times to join the assault, his Southern Hospitality responsible for more than one broken bone and deep laceration on the enemy; and Rudolf had been very conspicuously absent from Radovan’s side when the Heavy pushed the BLU defenses to breaking point.  “…Gabriel… eh, tu n'dois pas me dire si tu veux pas, mais… qu'est-ce qui se passe?”, Pierre said – when he blinked the haze of tears away, Gabriel noticed that the spy had pulled him off to the side, to a more quiet corner where they could talk.  The spy seemed genuinely concerned – 'of course, Dantan,  _idiote_ , why wouldn’t he fuckin’ be worried, ya started cryin’ during battle! What the hell, man!’, he admonished himself, wincing at the sharpness of his own thoughts – and with a deep sigh, Gabriel spoke.

“Donc… dis pas à les autres, mais… but ya know the conditions of my comin’ here, Pierre, right?”, he asked – when Pierre nodded, keeping back his usual remarks about the pyromania and the fact that his contract was in fact a prison sentence turned to very strictly regulated and limited freedom – Gabriel’s voice grew softer and quieter until it was only a little louder than a whisper.  Yet still, he noticed, it managed to cut across the distant sounds of battle with ease.  “…Donc t'sais pourquoi j'suis venu ici… mais pas  _comment_ … I… me promets, me  _jures_ , que tu dis pas même le moindre mot-”

“Je te jure, Gabriel.”, Pierre said solemnly, causing Gabriel to relax just a little.  The spy had spoken up so swiftly that he hadn’t even had to voice the threat he’d intended on voicing.

“Okay… so, long story short, for the sake of where we are… I lost my mother, which  _hurt_ me  _deep_ , and that’s when the pyromania started.  Right after her funeral.  I got worse, an’  _worse_ , until my sister caught on that I was the pyromaniac that was terrorizing Montreal.  By then it’d been two years and I’d lost most of what I had in life before.  My job, my friends, my colleagues… anyway, my dad and my sister got me into a great hôpital right outside Montreal where I got treatment, and it all went okay until suddenly… jusqu'au point de d'venir  _trop_ … j'avais le sentiment que tout a failli et… et j'ai fuit.”  The spy nodded, not speaking – Gabriel took that as a sign to continue: “…Ever since then, I haven’t… been in contact with my family. At first because I was afraid they’d hate me, then because I was ashamed I’d ended up in prison… and once I started here, I just… got a 'number disconnected’ message.  For both of 'em.  So I thought they didn’t want me to contact 'em anymore.”

“Oh, mon ami…”, Pierre said, shaking his head: Gabriel knew what the spy wanted to say but due to some miracle the man refrained from actually voicing the thought, allowing the pyro to sigh and continue his thought, which took on a much happier track now.

“…Donc, au premier, j'étais pas si triste.  Ils me manquent, bien sûr, mais… but not that much.  Then Lander happened and I… was ashamed again… and after that I just didn’t care about a lot of things anymore.”

“Jusqu'à rencontrer Samantha, n'est-ce pas?”, Pierre asked shrewdly, and Gabriel blushed as he nodded.

“Jusqu'à trouver Sammy, yeah.  She…  _lifted me up._  She still does, even.  Ah, elle est une rêve, une ange… une déesse.  La seule être divine de ma vie.  …And hearin’ her story about her brother made me fuckin’ realize that I can’t let my dad and my sister think I’m dead or something…  So I asked Sammy’s brother Damien to look into it, see if he couldn’t find their number, and-”

“Oh, merde, 'as 'e deescovered ton père est décedé?”, Pierre interrupted, looking shocked, and Gabriel shook his head.

“Hell no.   _Fuck_ , just the thought of…  _no_ , he got their numbers, and now I’m gettin’ cold feet.  I can’t do it. J'peux pas le faire, j'peux pas risquer qu'ils sont fachés de moi. If they turn me away… I mean, they’ve got every fuckin’ right to turn me away, but if they  _do that_ … c'est beaucoup plus pire que mourir…”

“Je le comprends, mon ami… I understand eet.”  At the mention of 'understand’, Gabriel sighed and nodded, mentally steeling himself for the inevitable moment where the spy told him he’d have to brave it… but the moment didn’t come.  Instead, Pierre looked a little mournful as he next spoke words that Gabriel hadn’t expected at all. “…Then you will 'ave to accept that zey are no longer une partie de ta vie.  Dat ees 'ard, very 'ard.  Eef you need someone 'o will leesten, mon ami-”

“Merci pour le geste, Pierre.”, Gabriel admitted, though he shook his head and spoke up softly, more than a little shame in his words.  “But I don’t think I’ll need it.  Sammy keeps an eye on me, and… mais merci pour la suggestion.  T'es un ami véritable.”

“Même chose.”, Pierre answered with a soft smile before he turned serious.  “Donc, do you theenk you can join us again in zee battle?”

“Sure. Think BLU’s been gettin’ it  _too_ easy without me toastin’ their ugly asses-”, Gabriel said, pulling his gas mask on and turning his next words into an unintelligible mutter that the spy nevertheless seemed to have no trouble understanding: “Thnnnnkh, hmmmmnnshhh hhh!”

 

“…Ah, Sam, jus’ the person ah were lookin’ fer!”  The exclamation made the pyro look up from her 'Pyrotechnics Monthly’ magazine to see Dell walking over to her, wearing a long-sleeved jeans shirt over his overalls.  Instantly – as always when she and the engineer talked – the corners of Sam’s mouth turned up into a warm smile, and the article she’d been reading was already pushed to the background.

“Dell! Were you looking for me?”

“Well, 'lookin’ fer yew’ ’s maybe a li'l too much, but ah were jus’ thinkin’ 'bout askin’ yew how work’s comin’ along with them remote detonation packs.  Ah used mah sentry’s tuhday-”

“And there’s a new one laying ready at my workshop.”, Sam said with a broad grin, already having anticipated that that would be the engineer’s question.  “I’ve finetuned the composition a bit, too, because your sentry needs a different detonation pack than your dispenser or your teleporters… it’s lighter but it’ll still do the same amount of damage.  I’ve not tested it yet, though, so if you’d be willing to do a field test…?”, she suggested, only for the engineer to shake his head and chuckle.

“Naw, Sammy, y'ain’t need tuh do a field test, ah trust yer abilities. …'Sides, yeh need yer time tuh work on our fireworks.”  At the mention of the fireworks, Sam gladly laughed lightly and shook her head, motioning for the boxes lining the walls.  They had held the chemicals at first, but now they held a variety of devices wrapped in brightly coloured adhesive tape and rigged with electrical ignitions. “Yeh mean yeh’re done already with makin’ the fireworks?”, Dell asked nonplussed, and Sam grinned.

“Well,  _yes_. I worked hard on them, and I’ve managed to make enough for three displays: one for you, since your children were persuasive enough to entice me into making fireworks; one for the base, to give you guys a nice little holiday present from yours truly… and one for taking along with me and Gabriel when we go to Damien’s for the holidays.” The thought of her holidays – and especially the special fireworks displays she’d made for herself, the engineer and the rest of her colleagues both on RED and BLU team – cheered her up considerably from the gloom she’d been feeling the previous two days.  However, Dell’s next question instantly ended that.

“So yer brother said ’s okay fer yew tuh bring home Dante, then?”  Sam couldn’t help but frown slightly, though she still nodded; Dell caught her expression, it seemed, because his next words were spoken softly.  “…Sammy, y'ain’t look too happy 'bout it… are yew an’ yer boyfriend havin’ trouble?  Is he misbehavin’ again?  Y'know yeh gotta tell doc Hartmann of RED if'n he starts fires 'gain, right?”

“I… yes, I know, Dell, and no, it’s not… it’s nothing like that…”, Sam said feebly, shaking her head and swallowing the pseudo-lump in her throat before speaking with more conviction: “Gabriel and I are not having trouble, but… it’s just… Gabriel isn’t feeling too good-”

“Yeah, tell me somethin’ ah  _ain’t_ noticed. He’s been more reckless 'n ever before in battle.  Got killed _twice_ by mah sentry tuhday.  ’s Almost like he don’t wanna stop battlin’, even if'n it gits 'im killed and sent tuh respawn.”, the BLU engineer said, shaking his head mournfully.  “…Ah talked tuh Grant an’-”

“So you know?”, Sam asked, and Dell nodded softly, almost shyly.

“Yeah, ah know.  Grant didn’t wanna tell me none but when ah said ah were worried 'bout yew, too, he told me.”  Her friend didn’t speak further, the silence growing overpowering in between them until Sam sighed and started talking, airing her heart to the man she knew she could trust implicitly.

“…He’s afraid, which I understand – I mean, he hasn’t spoken to his father or his sister in well-on ten years and the way he parted from them was… well, let’s say it was less-than-ideal-”

“An’ that’s bein’ real kind tuh everyone.”, Dell said in a half-whisper that had Sam roll her eyes and pick up where he’d interrupted.

“-so I can see why he’s apprehensive about calling them now that he has their contact information again.  But I can tell he needs this. Gabriel’s been living in so much grief the past ten years, carrying such a heavy, heavy burden around… anything that can lessen that burden, anything that can take part of that grief away… especially people that might want to help him carry that burden…  anything like that is more than welcome.  I’m not saying this to make it easier on me but on  _him_.”

“Yeah, ah know.”, Dell said, patting her on the shoulder softly – he left the rest unspoken but his eyes said it all, and it was that fatherly look more than anything else that got Sam to continue.

“…You see, Dell, I’ve lost my parents too – and in a  _hell_ of a worse way than Gabriel.  His father and his sister loved him, that much was so clear when he told me the story of when and why he ran. They loved him and they supported him.  … _My_ parents  _disowned and sued_ me, and the way Damien detailed his last visit to them, there’s little to no hope of a reconciliation in their lifetime.  Gabriel doesn’t even know if his father and sister hate him, or love him, or miss him, or think he’s dead….  That’s more than enough to upset a  _balanced_ and  _mentally strong_ man, so imagine what it does to Gabriel.  He’s run away in his chores, his cooking and his reading, but I can tell it’s only a matter of time before he runs away in another way, a more destructive way-”

“Heck, ah kin see what’s got y'all worried, Sammy, dahlin’…”, Dell admitted, again in that fatherly tone that had Sam’s heart ache ever so slightly with a longing for having her actual father there.  It was a sentiment so powerful and sudden that she voiced it without properly realizing that she did so.

“…Ah, if only my dad were here,  _he_ ’d know exactly what I need to tell Gabriel to get him to move on.  He’s like that.  An inspirational man.  …God, I’d love for Gabriel to have that, one way or another.”

“Maybe Dante don’t need  _inspiration_ ’s much as he needs  _protection_. Yew need yer dad, Sammy, an’ all Gabriel needs is 'is mom.”

“And she’s gone – I know.  …God, don’t I know it.  I even contemplated patching things up with my parents any way I could, can you imagine? My mum, as spectacularly as she’s failed at parenting me and Michael, at least  _is_ a  _mother_.”, she admitted, and Dell blinked, looking at her in confusion for a few long seconds before shaking his head slowly.

“…Well, ah think ah got a… well, not a  _solution_  ’s much as a  _possible idea fer helpin’_. Why don’t yeh give 'is off-base psychiatrist a call?  Gabriel thinks'a her as a friend, at least… an’ he trusts her…”  Sam sighed and nodded, slowly and hesitantly at first but then gathering conviction until she smiled again.

“Dell, that actually is a great idea – how  _I_ didn’t think of that-”

“Heck, Sam, li'l lady, yew’re busy in so many diff'rent ways, ’s hardly a surprise if'n yeh miss a couple'a things, even th'obvious ones –  _especially_ the obvious ones.  …So, yew gon’ give his doc a call?”

“No time like the present – she gave me her personal number, so I can call her any time of day.  She said to use it for trouble, but this qualifies as 'trouble’-”

“Heck, yeah.”, Dell agreed, already moving back towards the door. However, Sam didn’t let him leave just like that: she walked over to him and patted him on the shoulder as well, just like he’d done to her before to show support.  “Awh, li'l lady, y'ain’t gotta-”, the engineer started, but the pyro cut him off with a firm shake of her head.

“I  _do_ 'gotta’. Dell, every time I miss my father and his advice,  _you_ are right there.  If I ever patch things up with my father, I’m introducing you to him, any way possible.  You’re both so alike: both very practical, down-to-earth, analytical men that love their families fiercely and that are passionate about their jobs.”

“Both fathers an’ hard-workin’ men, in short, huh, li'l lady?”, Dell said, winking at her – what little of her previous gloom had desperately clung on to the corners of her mind was blown away and replaced with a warm, fond glow from the center of her being as she smiled broadly.

“Indeed. …Ah, thank you so much, Dell.  I’ll call doctor Hayakawa and ask her if there’s anything she or I can do to get Gabriel… moving on, at least.  I’d hate to see his heart break any further than it’s already broken by life – especially since, even if he doesn’t know it,  _he_ is the one doing the breaking at the moment.”  Dell smiled ruefully before opening the door leading outside again, and when it fell shut after him, Samantha sighed and took out her cellphone.

“…Doctor Hayakawa?  It’s Samantha Tennant, Gabriel’s girlfriend.  …It’s nothing serious, but Gabriel could be doing better and I thought maybe you could offer some… insight…”

 

It had to be the first Saturday that Gabriel sat at the bar alone again. He sent a longing look at the table where Sam sat, playing poker with the engineers, the spies and Yaroslav: unsurprisingly, he got a longing look back, complete with a rueful smile and another sip of the glass of spritz she had in front of her.  She’d come back from her workshop that Thursday evening with a similar smile on her face, and she hadn’t told him much but it was clear from the way she’d kissed him goodnight that she was giving him the space and time he needed to clear his head.

Unfortunately, so far, his head was far from clear.  His thoughts kept wavering between extremes.  Once or twice, he’d sat with his cellphone in his hand, ready to press the dial button and call his father or his sister, but he’d relented because the thought of the pain he’d possibly feel if they turned out to hate him now; just as many times, however, he’d sat staring at Damien’s text message, ready to delete it but relenting because of the hope, the undying and perhaps foolish hope, that his father and sister had  _really_ only just moved when he’d decided to call them again.  He kept turning in circles, he found, from no to yes to no and back again.

“…Like a fuckin’  _metronome_ …”, he ground out.

“Like a whut now, son?”, came the reply from next to him, causing him to blink and look up in surprise, which only compounded when he noticed who spoke.  It was Dell who stood there, of all people, looking more grandfatherly than ever before even as he sipped his cold beer. Before Gabriel had the chance to answer, intending on making the BLU engineer walk back to the poker game, the man spoke up again, his tone calm but decisive and his eyes showing that the pyro had better not protest: “Don’t yeh say it, Dante, son, not until ah finished speakin’ mah mind first.”  Another sip of his beer followed before Dell finally sat down and looked at Gabriel with a look of almost regretful understanding.  “…Suhmantha is hurtin’.”

“Ah  _merde_ , I don’t wanna hurt her-”, Gabriel said, but the engineer shook his head and spoke again in that calm, decisive tone.

“Y'ain’t hurtin’ her knowingly, Gabriel, son… naw, she’s hurtin’ 'cause yew are.  Y'see, we at BLU don’t gotta even see yeh t'know if'n yeh’re doin’ well or not.  If yew are doin’ well, Sam’s radiant an’ cheerful, she does her job better 'n ever before, she  _leads_ th'offense an’ she keeps a tight defense.  She sings in the respawn room, she talks an’ jokes around with Arch’ an’ me… she even tolerates Theo a lot better 'n most'a us.  But if'n yew aren’t doin’ too great, she ain’t neither.  An’ the past few days, Sam’s been tired an’ moody. Sure, she still does her job well, but she’s busy worryin’ 'bout yew instead'a keepin’ her focus on tha’ there battlefield.  She don’t talk much tuh anyone, too, she’s always busy tryin’ tuh keep yer issue outta her mind.”  Dell taking another sip of his bottle of beer gave Gabriel an opportunity to speak again.

“You don’t know 'my issue’-”

“Ah  _do_ know yer issue, Dawntahn.”  It was said with an even, calm voice, Gabriel found, but the tone in which Dell spoke and the way he used his full last name without any anger or annoyance in his tone for the first time in his career were more than enough to communicate that the engineer would punch his lights out if he spoke out of turn again.  Dell continued as if Gabriel hadn’t even spoken in the first place, further evidencing that he’d meant what he’d said before. “…Y'ain’t seen or spoken tuh yer old man an’ yer sister in nearly ten years, an’ now that yeh got their telephone numbers, yew are afraid they’s gon’ curse y'out an’ kick yeh back outta their lives. Right?”  Gabriel nodded, biting his lip to hold in a somewhat annoyed answer – it seemed Dell finally noticed how hard of a time he had keeping himself in check and decided to show pity.  “…Ah know it ain’t  _fun_ t'listen tuh an old man givin’ y'advice 'bout somethin’ yeh don’t think ’s his business, 'specially since this goes so close tuh yer heart, but that’s why ah’m here, Dante, son – cause this  _matters_ t'yew. An’ whatever matters t'yew, matters tuh Sam… an’ what matters tuh Sam, matters tuh me, son.  …Sam’s worried that yeh’re gon’ make a decision y'end up regrettin’ even worse than all them other regrets yeh carry 'round.”

“Elle doit pas s'inquièter, j'vais pas le merder d'nouveau…”, Gabriel muttered, wishing to God that he could be certain of that.  If he was honest, he felt like he was ruining things even by hesitating where he’d normally rush in otherwise.  Sighing, he motioned for Dell to continue, which the engineer did with a soft pat on Gabriel’s shoulder.

“Ah’m here tuh offer yew mah humble advice, son, ’s all.  Order yerself the best drink this place has t'offer – jus’ one, mind, don’t yew go drinkin’ yerself silly on us – an’ then give 'em a call.  Don’t end up missin’ yer chance  _again_ , it may be the last one yeh’re gon’ git, son.  …Anyway, that’s mah advice.  ’s Up t'yew tuh follow it or not.”  Slowly, Dell rose from his chair next to Gabriel again, walking back to the poker game where he was dealt in again and playing in a matter of seconds, completely focused on the game again.  The same wasn’t true for Sam, he noticed: she looked at him so much that Arsène had to nudge her each time it fell to her to follow or raise, and she’d clearly lost a few hands as well because normally she’d already have a pile of winnings in front of her and now it looked like the others were all beating her each in turn.  But it wasn’t her clear distraction that spurred Gabriel to action, nor was it the engineer’s words: it was the sigh she gave and the way she looked back to her cards after having lost.  He’d seen Sam look so defeated only on two occasions: when he’d been hurt by her refusal and had been avoiding her, and when her brother had called her to let her know what an utter fiasco his last visit to their parents had been.  It was the sigh of a heart breaking slowly and irreversibly, he’d surmised: the sigh of a woman that was being ground into the mud by life.  But in this case, 'life’ was equal to him, he knew, and that knowledge pained him far worse than any other pain could possibly manage.  Even the pained feeling his fear of being permanently shunned and hated by his father and sister was pushed aside in light of the utter defeat Sam seemed to feel, and it got Gabriel to finally make a decision.

“Gareth!”, he called out softly, instantly causing the bartender to perk up and walk over to him.  “Give me a double-shot of Honeydew an’ grab yourself something nice an’ refreshing, you hear?”  The bartender nodded slowly and took five bottles from the shelf, adding a little from each to a cocktail shaker he then shook vigorously before pouring the contents over a glass holding two ice cubes.  Gabriel pre-emptively smacked his lips at the thought of the taste, sweet and rich with just a hint of sharpness due to the vodka that was mixed in: however, when the glass was placed in front of him, he looked at it first.  One of the things he’d learnt to do to keep himself in control of his drinking was to _savor_ whatever he still  _did_ drink. It looked perfect, all creamy white swirling around the ice cubes – he could see the slightest hint of dilution indicating that the ice cubes were melting, but that only  _added_ to the picture of perfection instead of detracting from it.  Then next came the touch: the frosty glass felt like ice in his hand, making his fingertips ache where they touched the glass, but he could also feel the texture of the much-used glass under the thick but still sensitive skin, not entirely smooth but slightly ridged from how many times it’d been washed in the bar’s sink.  Next came the scent of coconut, vanilla and all-overpowering alcohol that invaded his nostrils and his entire head when he brought the glass up to his nose to smell it, and when he slowly swirled it, he could hear the soft 'clink-clink’ of the ice cubes hitting the side of the glass.  And finally, after what felt like hours of drinking in the cocktail before actually  _drinking_ it, he put the glass to his lips and took a minute sip, allowing the flavors to flow freely.  The sweetness, the milky texture, the way it left a lingering aftertaste that was only rivalled by the sweet taste of his Samantha… contentedly, he took another sip, savoring every last droplet of the drink, focusing fully on that instead of on his worries.  And he had to admit, when the glass was empty and the last of the liquor mingled with the water from the rapidly-melting ice cubes, that Dell’s advice had been more sound than he’d bargained for.  The liquor burned in the pit of his stomach, but in a soft fire, making it hard for him to feel fearful or pained anymore. Sighing, he stretched and then looked at Samantha to see her stammering an apology to Dell, who was looking at her like she was a child that had just lost a pet – and his decision of before was strengthened.  Rising from his seat, he walked over to the table where she sat.

“Sammy, let’s go back to base, okay?”  He spoke softly and yet loud enough for the rest of the men at the table to hear, so that they couldn’t argue with him or try to get him to play a round with them.  For two of them, at least, it was superfluous: Grant simply nodded, smiling, and Dell pushed Sam’s winnings towards her in a clear indication that she was at liberty to leave the table right then and there.

“…Okay, Gabriel, mon amour…”  She still sounded hesitant, but at the same time she seemed happy enough to get away from the poker table: rising quickly, she handed a fifty dollar bill to Dell with the express instruction to buy everyone at the table one last drink, and then she walked out with Gabriel, waving to the rest of the people that still bothered to look up from what they were doing.  He caught the look Pierre cast them and the smile the spy had acquired, and the way Rudolf looked relieved as well, but where it’d normally annoy him, now it only strengthened Gabriel’s resolve.  “…S-so…”, Sam said as they walked briskly back to base – the way her tone showed how incredibly difficult his girlfriend was coping with his mental turmoil made his heart ache lightly again, and he halted, pulling her against himself even though the night’s cold instantly enveloped them in a chilly grip.  “Gabriel?”, she squeaked right before he groaned and kissed her needfully, though not with his usual fire. His need was not physical at that moment but emotional: more than anything, he longed for the stability and sense of security he got by holding his girlfriend.

“…J'vais les appeler.”, he simply said, leaning his forehead down against hers, looking into her eyes as if hoping to drown in their hazel depths.  Somehow, however, saying that he’d call them – the mere voicing of his resolve – only made it seem more right.  “I’m gonna call them and if they shout at me or tell me they hate me-”

“Oh, Gabriel, they  _won’t…_ but if they do, I’ll be right here with you, to hold you, to  _love_ you.”, Sam said, and Gabriel gave her a weak, hopeful smile.

“J'suis le mec le plus fortuné du monde grâce à toi…  So come on, before I lose my nerve.”, he said, and he and Sam walked on to the base briskly.  The fear returned slightly, but instead of succumb to it, Gabriel now used it to fuel his pace, or to reach out to Sam, whose gentle warmth and encouraging smile were now more than enough to push back his worries again.  Soon, they’d arrived at the door to the BLU side of the compound, which Sam opened and then let Gabriel through first, which further showed him that she’d follow wherever he led. This time, he led her to their separate rooms, where he sat down in their sofa, taking out his cellphone and looking Damien’s message up again.  “…J'vais les appeler…”, he muttered, willing his fear to subside since it had used the opportunity to  _skyrocket_ again – Sam gently touched his hand and pressed a few buttons on his cellphone before gently bringing his hand, cellphone and all, to his ear, letting her hand slowly migrate to his shoulder in a soothing half-embrace while the number was dialled and the call patched through miles upon miles of aether.  As always, Gabriel mused with a soft grin, Sam knew exactly what to do, exactly how to sense him.  He meant to speak up and say as much to her, but then the call was answered and a weary, gritty voice on the other end spoke up, making the pyro freeze.

“ _…M-marc Dantan.”_  A thousand things sprung to mind – no, a  _million_ things – and yet the first thing that came to Gabriel’s mind to say was simple and almost  _stupid._

“…P-papa-” Instantly, his father’s tone changed, becoming alert and excited.

“ _C-c'est pas vrai… Ga-gabriel, c'est toi?”_ It was clear from the man’s tone that he was on the verge of tears, and that fact alone was enough to move Gabriel, hurt and joy and apprehension mingling into one big maelstrom in his head.

“O-ouais, c'est moi, papa – n-n'pleure pas-”

“ _T'es vivant!  Oh, m-mon coeur… faut que j’m'asseyes… Gabriel, c'est vraiment toi?  T'es okay?  Il n'y a pas d'problème?  Oh, mon dieu, c'est vraiment toi… t'es bien?  Ta soeur m'a dit que t'serait en prison pour d'l'incendie criminel-”_  It was more than clear to Gabriel that his father was crying freely: for one, he spoke without listening, asking him twice if he was okay, and then there was the fact that he sounded like he’d been hit with a hammer on the head hard.  And Gabriel, unsurprisingly, followed the example his father set to a T, stammering his answers and crying uncontrollably.

“C-c'est vrai, c'est moi, j'suis okay, et j'suis pas dans la me-  J-j'ai pas d'problèmes, t'inquiètes pas… oh, papa, que t’m'as manqué – que toi et Annabelle m'ont manqués…  Ah, m-mais t'es pas faché? T'es vraiment pas-”  Again, his father interrupted him, clearly intent on airing his heart first.

“ _Gabriel, j'suis pas – j'ai jamais été faché!  J’t'aime, t'es mon fils, j'vais toujours être là pour toi quand t'en a besoin!  Ah, mais t'es en prison au moment?  Où?  J'viens te rendre visite dès qu'j'peux – c-c'est à dire,_ nous  _t'rendons visite dès que possible – oh, mon dieu, mon dieu, il faut que j'appele Belle, qu'elle va rejouir!”_

“Papa, laisse-moi appeler Annabelle, okay?  Oh, j'ai beaucoup à te parler! J-j'suis si content, si… heureux que t'es pas faché…”, the pyro said, relaxing – next to him, Samantha gave him a broad smile and a quick squeeze, further adding to the elation he felt.  “M-mais c'est déjà tard et t'as besoin de dormir, pas vrai?”

“ _J'en ai plus besoin, m-mais… ah, un p'tit peu de temps pour le réaliser que c'est vraiment toi, que t'as pas oublié…  M'appeles de nouveau demain le matin, il faut qu'on parle.  J'veux savoir tout qui s'est passé avec toi ces dix années passées.  Le plus pire et le plus merveilleux – tout.  …A demain?”_ , his father asked, and Gabriel nodded vigorously.

“A demain, papa, j'oublies pas.  Neuf heures, t'es d'accord?”

“ _Parfait. A bientôt, donc, Gabriel.  …oh, attendez, c'est quoi ton numéro?”_

“Papa, j’t'appele sur ton mobile, t’ _as_ mon numéro…”, Gabriel said softly, almost meekly – his father had never been a great fan of technology, so it was little wonder that he didn’t know that he could call Gabriel back using the date of the incoming call.  “Si tu l'veux, tu peux demander à Annabelle d'sauvegarder mon numéro sur ton carte SIM- m-mais t'inquiètes pas, j'te jure que je te rappelera demain le matin.  J'veux plus te manquer.”  His voice was sincere and his tone seemed to be what his father had been waiting for, because he simply sighed happily and spoke in a weary but content tone.

“ _Ouais, donc, à demain, bientôt… bonne nuit, Gabriel.”_

“Bonne nuit…”, Gabriel said, ending the call only when his father had done so before turning to Sam, grinning madly.  “Ah, mon ange, I can’t tell ya what this feels like-”

“You don’t have to, Gabriel, mon âme.  I  _know_ what it feels like, and I’m so excited for you.  Now come on, call your sister before it’s midnight and nobody in their right mind answers their phones anymore.”  Gabriel didn’t need much more exhortation than that: his cellphone was beside his ear again in the blink of an eye.  This time, it didn’t take long at all for the telephone to be answered.

“ _Annabelle Jordan, who is this?”_

“Annabelle, it’s Gabriel-”

“ _W-what?!”_ Whatever his sister had been expecting, it clearly hadn’t been this.  Not that he could blame her.  Then, when she’d clearly gathered her wits about her again, she added:  _“T-this isn’t a joke, is it?  If so, it’s very,_ very  _poor taste-”_

“C'est pas une blague, ma chère soeur, c'est vraiment moi.  I just called dad, who cried over the phone-”

“ _Well, of course he did – Gabriel… oh my god, I can’t believe it’s really you.  N-not over the telephone, not just like that-”_ Gabriel smiled and nodded before doing the first thing that came to mind and speaking in a soft, hushed tone.

“I’ll  _prove_ it’s me, Belle.  Back when we were kids – I must’ve been just four and you were ten – you broke mom’s favorite porcelain statuette and you made me swear never to tell her.  But instead I decided to tell her  _I_ broke it and she didn’t punish me because I turned on the waterworks an’ everything.”

“ _I thought she’d never known!  …Oh, Gabriel, it_ is  _you… who else could know that?  S-so if this is you… are you calling from prison?  I mean, I know you’re in there, and I know why-”_

“I’m not in prison, not anymore, but don’t worry… things…”, Gabriel stammered before running a hand through his hair.  “J'ai tant à te dire, Annabelle.  I’ve got so much to tell ya.  You an’ dad-”

“ _If you’re not in prison anymore, are you coming to visit us?  I mean, for the holidays?  I… oh, it’d make papa’s Christmas if you came over!  A-and New Year’s – les feux d'artifices… I mean, uh, i-if you could… je ne sais pas comment ça va avec tes, eh, envies…”_ Gabriel rolled his eyes and then suddenly looked at Samantha a little helplessly, torn again between his love for her and the overwhelming joy he felt at being reconnected to his long-lost family.

“Eh… I kind of had plans-”

“Gabriel, we can talk to Damien, I’m sure he’ll understand!”, Sam said quickly and urgently – instantly, Annabelle’s tone on the other end of the line changed.

“ _Gabriel, who… that sounded like a_ woman  _there with you… but you… I mean, mom was pretty clear, and so were_ you _-”_

“Like I said, I’ve got a lot to tell ya.  T-that was Samantha, my girlfriend – we had plans to spend the holidays at her brother’s, but she says he’ll understand if we come over to you and dad. Annabelle, j'te promets-”However, at that exact time, his sister stifled a yawn and he looked at the clock, noticing it was already ten to midnight, and he smiled as he continued: “Ya know what?  Go to sleep now – you probably need your beauty sleep… I promise you I’ll call you again tomorrow 'round noon, how’s that sound?”

“ _…I’ve got your number anyway, right?  Bien, okay, I’ll hear from you again tomorrow then?”_  It sounded sceptical enough to get Gabriel to roll his eyes, though he didn’t contradict her sentiment.  Instead, he smiled as he spoke.

“You’re makin’ me feel like I’m unreliable, chère soeurette…  A demain à midi, donc.  Bonne nuit, à toi et à ta famille.”

“ _You and your girlfriend too, Gabriel… oh, que je vais rêver de te revoir, mon p'tit frère…”_ , she admitted before hanging up, and this time it took Gabriel at least ten seconds to press the 'disconnect’ button on his own phone. He felt joyous, dizzy and slightly nervous again, though this time in a good way – and when Sam spoke, it was clear that the combination of emotions he felt also showed in his features or his posture.

“…I told you they would never hate you…”  It was said lightly and with a deep, almost breathtaking affection: grinning broadly, Gabriel turned and pulled Sam onto his lap while kissing her deeply and passionately, his hands holding her in place and tightly pressed against him.  When they parted, both breathing hard, she gave him a half-lidded look of slightest confusion, causing him to motivate his actions to her.

“J'me sens si bon… I feel like I can handle the world again.  And that’s cause for celebration.  Donc, me dis pas que t'as pas envie de moi, mon ange, mon coeur, j'vois que t'es en train de mentir…”  Sam laughed lightly and didn’t try to deny her need for him; a few seconds and another fierce, longing kiss later, Gabriel found it hard to keep his thoughts on anything beside the stunningly beautiful woman that now straddled his lap and seemed to wish to melt into him.


	34. Fire lights above my head

“ _…I already expected that.”_ Damien’s voice sounded soothing to Sam, who sat rapidly chewing a croissant – next to her, Gabriel drank his fruit juice loudly before burping, causing Damien to tack on a disapproval:  _“Also, tell Gabriel I expect model behaviour out of him when he’s over here-”_

“Never gonna happen, Damien, mon ami.  I can’t even say ‘I’ll try’ 'cause that’d be a fuckin’ lie.” _,_ Gabriel reacted, though he did seem tack on a quick 'sorry’ at the end, which got Damien to smile, clearly.

“ _Well, I suppose as long as he won’t misbehave_ too  _much, I’ll just have to tolerate it…  So, you’re going over to Canada for Christmas, huh?”_

“Yes – well, at least, that’s the idea.  We’ve still got to ask Gabriel’s father if he wants us to come but I presume he’ll either ask us to himself or he’ll be overjoyed at the suggestion.  …Ah, Damien, you should have seen Gabriel’s face last night when he called his father.”, Sam admitted, placing a hand over her heart which was then, unsurprisingly, joined by Gabriel’s hand over hers.

“T'es une ange.  Only an angel would be nerve-wracked and  _still_ find the patience and energy to transfer to a wretch like me.”, her boyfriend said softly into her unoccupied ear, complete with a kiss to her cheek, and then he switched sides and spoke into her cellphone with a splendidly indulgent tone: “In case ya were wondering, Damien,  _that’s_ what me bein’ sweet to Sammy sounds like.  …Donc, t'as pas d'problème avec nous manquer pour quelques jours autour d'Noël?”

“ _Je n'ai pas de problem.”_ , Damien said – his French was so forced and accented that Sam laughed despite herself.

“Oh, brother dearest, your French is  _abysmal_ , however did you pass your A-level like that?”

“ _…I, uh, never got my A-level in French, just a GCSE.  …A-anyway…”_ , the businessman quickly stammered, clearly intent on changing the subject away from betraying her expectations of him, something that Sam allowed him to do more so to preserve his sanity than because she was actually shocked,  _“…should I book your tickets?”_

“No, no need for that – we’ll order them online.  Besides, we don’t yet know where Gabriel’s father and sister live nowadays… I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed it, but Canada’s a  _big_ country-”

“ _Funnily enough, I_ did  _notice as much.”_ , Damien joked back, evidently smiling broadly.   _“Okay then, if you’ll be able to manage this… oh, but the fireworks!  How will you arrange the fireworks?”_ Sam paled, biting her lip.  In all of the commotion, she’d forgotten that she’d made a fireworks display for New Year’s which she was going to fire up at Damien’s home.  However, in a display of staggering insight, Gabriel was the one that spoke up next, loud enough for Damien to hear as well.

“We can leave the fireworks here, the workshop’s locked anyways, and then come an’ pick 'em up when we drive over to Damien’s – j'pense que ça c'est la meilleure solution.”  Instantly, Sam smiled at her boyfriend, giving his hand a quick squeeze and speaking up again.

“Gabriel’s right, leaving them here and then picking them back up before we head over to you is the best solution.  …Speaking of, how  _are_ we coming over to you?  We didn’t agree on anything regarding that, yet…”

“ _Well, I’ll be pretty busy even over the holidays – or I suppose I should say I’ll be pretty busy_ especially  _over the holidays.  Being the youngest manager without a wife to make demands means I get all the lovely jobs no one else wants, which means I got roped into following up the construction of one of our new energy-efficient polymer production plants in New Jersey.  …But I’ll try and keep the twenty-ninth open to come and pick you up, how does that sound?”_ , he suggested, prompting a broad, relieved smile from Sam and an appreciative chuckle from Gabriel who answered in her stead.

“Sounds perfect, man!  …Anyway, Damien, sorry, but il faut qu'on te quitte maintenant.  It’s nearly nine and I don’t wanna be even a  _second_ late when I call my dad.”  It was clear to Sam that Gabriel was looking forward to this second call, from just the look in his eyes and the suddenly eager tone of voice her lover spoke in.  She meant to tell her brother that she was sorry for ending the call, too, but he was already a step ahead of her.

“ _Okay, then, good luck – bonne chance, Gabriel.  Let me know how you’ve arranged things with mister Dantan, okay, Sam?  …have a nice day-”_

“I’ll bet ya we will have an amazing day, Damien, bye now.”, Gabriel said before ending the call in Sam’s stead, holding out his own cellphone as an apology of sorts.  “…Sorry, but I’m not breakin’ my first new promise to my dad.  Nine on the fuckin’ dot.”, he said softly, and Sam nodded, smiling broadly at him.

“I understand, Gabriel, mon amour.  Go on, make the call…”  He’d already dialled the number but had seemed to be waiting for her say-so to actually press the 'call’ button on his cellphone, which he then pressed again to end up on speakerphone, surprising her.  Unlike the previous night, this time the call was answered within two rings.

“ _Marc Dantan.”_  His voice was pleasant, Sam found, sounding a little like a cross between Jane Doe’s voice and Dell’s or her father’s: authorative and weathered with age, but at the same time amiable and easy-going. Based on the sound of his voice, his obvious love for his son and the one picture she’d seen of the man, she decided that she liked the man, even more so due to his next reaction.

“Papa, c'est Gabriel.”

“ _Pourquoi est-ce que tu m'dis ça, j'sais bien que c'est toi, Gabriel!”_ It was said in a soft, happy tone of voice, and the way he spoke was calm and yet with a hint of impatience on the background, as if he wanted nothing more than to hear every last detail of every last day of Gabriel’s life for the past ten years.   _“Alors, il faut qu'on parle au premier de ton fuite d'ici… on a trouvé les fleurs de lys que t'as rangé sur le tombeau d'Marylise, et la carte là-dedans.”_ Gabriel sighed and nodded, speaking up to voice his grief to his father.

“J'suis désolé de l'avoir fait, papa… j'ai jamais voulu te blesser, et Annabelle non plus, j'te jure.”

“ _Mais Gabriel, t'dois pas t'expliquer ou t'excuser vers moi et Belle, nous savons… nous savons comment c'était difficile pour toi.  T'as perdu trop… j'veux que tu le sais, Gabriel, je veux que tu sais que moi et Annabelle n'ont jamais perdus l'espoir de te retrouver et de t'aider de nouveau de retrouver ta vie d'autrefois.  Ton job, ton joie d'vivre, ta fierté… tout.”_ Now, Samantha noticed with a growing warmth that spread throughout her being, Gabriel grinned proudly and spoke in answer.

“Papa, j'ai déjà retrouvé prèsque tout d'tout ça… j'ai rencontré quelqu'un et-”

“ _Vraiment?”_ His father’s surprised question barely differed from the reaction Sam had thought he’d had, but Gabriel seemed to want to surprise his father even more.

“Oui, et si tu veux, t'peux la voir quand on-”

“ _Ho, ho, attends… t'as dit j'peux la voir?_ La _? Comme-”_

“Son nom est Samantha Tennant et elle vient d'Angleterre.  Et elle s'est assise bien à côté d'moi, donc-”

“ _J'peux pas le croire – toi, avec une femme?  T’m'as dit, il y a trop longtemps, 'j'vais jamais me lier à une fille, papa’-”_ , Marc Dantan said, nonplussed – Sam could only imagine his expression, but Gabriel grinned and shook his head, clearly reveling in having surprised his father.

“Ah, oui, j'étais plus jeune, plus… passioné, j'pense.  Mais c'était pas une mensonge: j'ai vraiment pensé d'me jamais retrouver amoureux d'une femme, mais… j'ai vu Samantha, et j’m'perdait.  Bien, donc-” Gabriel meant to speak on, to ask his father about the holidays, but clearly the man seemed to think that he’d been impolite before: he spoke up rapidly.

“ _Ah, j'suis désolé… I am sorry, miss Tennant.  I just… Gabriel always said 'e only ever 'ad feelinks for men, and so to 'ear that 'e ees in a relation with a woman… I am surprised, dat ees all.  Eet ees a pleasure to 'ear you, and eet weel be a pleasure to meet you, j'suis sûr.  Oh, sorry-”_

“That’s okay, monsieur Dantan.  The pleasure’s all mine, I’m just as happy to hear you, and I know Gabriel didn’t really look at ladies before me so I can understand your surprise.  Et je parle aussi le français si c'est plus facile pour vous.”

“ _Gabriel, dis ton p'tite femme qu'elle peut m'appeler 'Marc’ – ou, si elle est bien aussi sérieuse que toi, elle peut dire 'papa’ même que toi-”_ Sam knew it was said jokingly, but she couldn’t help herself: cutting across both men, she spoke with a broad grin.

“Donc,  _papa_ , Gabriel et moi voulons savoir que toi et Annabelle apprécierez bien que nous vous joindrons pour Noël.”  What followed, from both men, was a startled silence that was broken only when Sam muttered a soft 'désolé’.  Gabriel snickered first, but it was his father’s loud, warm laughter that really caused the taller pyro to relax.

“ _J'entends bien comment elle t'a volé le coeur, fils… Ne la laisse jamais partir.  Oui, Annabelle et moi voulons bien vous recevoir ce Noël, si vous pouvez venir ici, c'est à dire.”_ It was a testament to Gabriel’s joy, Sam supposed, that he wrapped his arms around her as tightly as he did, and it probably was a testament to his respect for his father that he didn’t also kiss her, instead leaning his head against hers as he spoke.

“No problem!  Pas d'problème, on l'arrangera!  …Oh, donc, j'ai beaucoup d'autre à te dire…”  As Gabriel started quickly sketching the outline of the ten years his father had missed, Sam leaned into her lover’s embrace, feeling content simply because Gabriel’s life had just become that much closer to being complete again.

 

“…Okay, here we go, two return tickets to Montreal… and a rental car, oui, merci beaucoup… I wanna show Sammy my house!  …Can’t believe Annabelle really kept it maintained for me, j'dois le remercier dès que j'la vois.”  Grinning, Gabriel typed his personal information into the online order form and then clicked 'submit’ to send it to the car rental company.  “I can’t believe I’m actually gonna see my papa and ma chère soeur again!”, he added, venting some of the nervous excitement that took hold of him again, as it had done ever since his first telephone call to his father.  He felt apprehensive and immensely joyous at the same time: the joy was obvious, because no matter how bad he’d gotten over the course of those ten years, he’d still missed his family most of all; but the apprehension was no less obvious, because he’d gotten  _exceptionally_ bad over the course of those ten years and he had no idea how his father and sister would react if they found out he’d developed a few horrible habits over the course of his stay at RED.  Fortunately, he wouldn’t have to explain his job itself anymore: his father had asked what kind of work he was involved in and he’d very nearly had a heart attack from the sounds of it when he said 'pyrotechnician’.  In the end, it was Sam’s calm explanation and her continued and firm insistence that Gabriel was completely in control that had gotten his father to sigh and relax.  And during their next telephone call, late that Tuesday evening, his father admitted that he’d looked him up on the company’s website, and he’d said 'que t'as changé, Gabriel, j'avais peine à te reconnaitre…’ - which was followed by a long and  _heart-warming_ rant about  _his goatee_ of all things, his father saying that he looked 'scruffy’ with it.  In the end, it had once again taken input from Sam, who said that she much preferred him  _with_ the 'scruffy’ patch of hair than  _without_ it, like she’d seen him on the photo of himself and his entire family. That moment, it had once again become crystal clear to Gabriel how lucky he was to have his girlfriend, because his father barely voiced a protest against it anymore, feebly suggesting that he should at least comb it then.  All in all, it had felt so  _normal_ , so much like his relationship with his father and sister had simply been put on pause, that his heart ached with contentment non-stop.

Grinning, Gabriel leaned back in his chair for a second, musing about the wave of positivity in his life as of late.  He’d only battled three days since having called his father and sister, but the impact had been undeniable already, to the point of even the ever-oblivious Graeme and the still-upset Chris having complimented him on some of the ambushes he’d laid or the assaults he’d led.  His energy levels had risen to the point of him being able to rush past Dell’s machinery on several occasions, and Sam had only managed to kill him once in those three days, because she’d had the advantage of coming up behind him while he was busy contemplating his next strategy.  He liked to think he was responsible for at least two of the five standstills they’d forced in those battles, keeping a close watch on Grant and his machines…  The engineer in particular had been generous with compliments, seeming to think that his good mood was a fluke and needed to be strengthened as much as humanly possible – or, he mused with a little more good faith in his teammate, seeming to want to reward his positive actions with as much praise as humanly possible.  It did boost his confidence, he admitted, but other than that it felt a little wrong on Grant’s behalf – they were friends before colleagues in Gabriel’s view, and as such the man’s compliments should be sincere.  The thought of Grant got Gabriel focused again on the matter of hand, and he found himself shaking his head as he mumbled to himself again.

“…Okay, now I just gotta tell Sammy I made the arrangements and print the damn confirmations!”, Gabriel admitted, exiting the internet browser and shutting down Sam’s laptop before getting up slowly and walking out of their living room towards the RED side of the compound.  Grant had a printer, and he was sure the engineer wouldn’t mind him using it, at least not if he asked nicely and maybe buttered the man up a little.  However, when he walked up to the engineer’s room, he heard soft voices and he paused, intending to patiently wait until Grant was available for him to talk to, but then he heard Sam speak inside the workshop and he involuntarily stepped closer to listen in.

“…it’s done now, so all that’s left to do is the display itself.”  Her voice bore that excited tone that, more than anything, showed she was talking fireworks to the engineer, who admittedly chuckled and spoke in a soothing tone.

“Y'look like yeh kin hardly wait, Suhmantha, pardner…   So, ’d the sheriff’s d'partment give yeh th'okay then?”, he asked, which got Gabriel to smile.  Grant did seem like he’d know about the practical side of organizing a fireworks display – not that Sam wouldn’t be equally knowledgeable, if not more, about the subject.  However, there was a hint of sadness in his girlfriend’s answer, he noticed with some dismay.

“Yeah…” Grant seemed to notice it too: he couldn’t hear the man stepping closer to her or hear him pat her shoulder lightly, but her next words communicated that he had done so.  “…It’s just… well, the sheriff’s department insisted that I got someone to help me set up, and my first choice would’ve been Gabriel because as excited as I am, that’s  _nothing_ compared to how thrilled he is to see me do what I do best.  But…”

“But the sheriff’s d'partment vetoed Gabriel?”, Grant asked, his voice showing disapproval and sympathy that had Gabriel mentally thank his friend.  He was so absorbed in his mental agreement that Sam’s words almost didn’t register.

“N-no, I decided against it.”  Silence followed: clearly Grant felt just as shocked as he did, Gabriel mused.  His good mood was replaced by horror: didn’t Sam trust him?  Did she think he’d screw things up? Or did she think it was a bad idea to let him handle explosives? Then, softly, and with the utmost careful deliberation, Grant asked the question that would provide the answers Gabriel suddenly desperately needed.

“…What made yeh 'decide 'gainst it’, Sam, dahlin’?”  Sam’s heavy sigh showed, at the very least, that she didn’t like having to sleight him, and her words only added to that, making Gabriel see the extent of the dilemma she saw herself placed before.

“Gabriel’s doing great, that’s why.  He’s so happy… I don’t… I don’t want to remind him too much of the parts of his life he hasn’t regained yet. And I  _certainly_ don’t want to bring up the pyromania, not now, not when he’s seemingly forgotten it’s even there in the first place…  I’m afraid that if something goes wrong and things ignite, he’ll-”

“Yeh’re afraid his pyromania’ll kick in again?”, Grant asked, his tone of voice showing just how laughable the idea was – Gabriel had to bite his lip to hold in a disbelieving snort – but Sam answered, her voice firm and yet somewhat saddened.

“N-no, I’m afraid that he’ll freeze.  I’m afraid that, if something goes wrong and someone gets burnt – me, or one of you – or, Lord help us all,  _Gabriel himself –_  he’ll break down again.  …And I’m afraid it’ll ruin his optimism if he helps me.  Gabriel…  it might just be the pyromania, but he told me once or twice he absolutely loves fireworks.  H-he told me he often talked about pyrotechnics, actual pyrotechnics, with Lander, and… and fireworks seems to be something that interests Gabriel… but I… the last thing I want to do is upset Gabriel, but he’s much better off standing by the sidelines than he’ll be behind the scene. I’m afraid he’ll stop seeing the magic of it once he knows how it’s done.  And I’m afraid it’ll remind him that he still has… well, you know just as well as I do that Gabriel’s still got a lot of obstacles to happiness in his life.  With the odds stacked against him, he needs dreams – I don’t want to  _ruin_ the one dream he might still have.”  For a heartbeat, Gabriel felt like speaking up and telling his girlfriend that she could trust him to keep it together, but then he bit his lip and took a step back, leaning against the wall of the hallway.  It was true that he’d often talked to the previous BLU pyro about fireworks – they’d both rued the fact that their pyromania caused the company to expressly forbid them from making their own flares, probably afraid that they’d set fire to the entire base.  And it was definitely true that he did think of fireworks-making as a potential plan for the future.  He and Lander had talked about what they’d do after they’d served their time with the company, which in his case meant serving actual time, and they’d frequently pushed each other to  _talk_ about those dreams, to support each other in attaining them.  Lander had, of course, preferred a second attempt at a career in the fire department once he was rid of his pyromania, but to Gabriel, his dreams had included chemistry, and naturally that had led to him thinking of pyrotechnics as a viable fall-back career, with the clear reservation that he’d have to be in control of his urge first.

But now, with his urge as well under control as he’d ever have it, he knew that control over his urges was the  _least_ of his worries, something that Grant also seemed to realize and voice to the BLU pyro.

“…Gabriel never really spoke 'bout much t'me… he did mention fireworks a couple'a times, yeah, but… but ah always thought he were just daydreamin’, whut with 'im servin’ time fer arson.  He ain’t gonna be makin’ no fireworks fer the next ten years 'least.”, Grant said – Gabriel could imagine the slightly rueful grin the engineer would have as he spoke, and the way he nervously scratched his hair, and it made the words all the worse.  However, Sam sighed softly and spoke again, her voice so muted Gabriel had to close his eyes in order to concentrate on the sound of her voice.

“That’s why I can’t let him help.  He’s still so far from living free, even if he maybe  _feels_ liberated now, with me and his father and sister and with you guys trusting and appreciating him more and more-”

“Awh, shucks, it were long overdue…”, the engineer admitted, sounding like he was ashamed, and Gabriel almost snorted.  Sam’s continuation showed him that she genuinely felt upset about his situation, which made him feel a little better.

“-even if I wish for nothing more than for him to be free.  He’s doing great, he’s genuinely sorry about what has happened back then… I just wish there was something I could do for him that won’t get his hopes up for  _nothing_ …” For a while, silence hung heavy inside the engineer’s workshop, and Gabriel was just about to walk away again when Grant spoke again.

“…So, who’d y'ask tuh help yeh with'cher fireworks, then?”

“Tavish.”

“ _Tavish_?! …’m Startin’ tuh think we’d all be better off if'n yeh  _did_ ask Gabriel t'help yeh…”, Grant reacted, and Sam clearly rolled her eyes judging by her slightly offended tone.

“Tavish has promised to stay off his scrumpy for the occasion and I’ve asked Dell to back me up if need be – I’ve got to explain to him how to rig up the fireworks anyway, he’s never done an actual fireworks display and I want it to be perfect for his little ones.  …Anyway, uh, for your shotgun shells…”  Gabriel slowly and quietly stepped back, shaking his head and feeling upset.  Sam had tempered his good mood – unknowingly, and perhaps with the best intentions, but she’d put a damper on his enthusiasm.  So instead of faking cheer, Gabriel decided to walk back to their room and surf the internet a little more to try and forget about the sudden gloom she’d summoned up from the depths of him again.

 

“ _Damien.”_ Her brother’s voice sounded weary on the telephone when Sam called him after the weekend, on Tuesday after battle, when she was sitting in her workshop.  She had a few orders – Jane and John’s stores of rockets were running low, and Grant had once again requested another three boxes of shotgun shells – but not as much as back in the beginning, making her suspect that the men were holding back a little since their holidays were so close at hand – they were down to their last week now, and it was felt all through the base clearly. It left her with more than enough time to call Damien, feeling a little apprehensive.

“…Oh, uh, am I calling at a bad time?”

“ _Oh, Sammy!”_ , her brother said, clearly regaining some energy again just from the sound of her voice, adding:  _“You never call at a bad time.  I was just… working on some paperwork. I’m actually glad you called-”_

“Because you’d fallen asleep, right?”, she said, chuckling softly for a few seconds when her brother maintained a silence that he deemed dignified.  Then, however, she turned serious again.  “…I’m calling with a, uh, delicate question.”

“ _…Oh god, you’re not… expecting, are you?”_ , Damien instantly asked, which prompted Sam to snort in clear derision of the idea.

“Damien,  _please_ , I thought doctor Harvey explained to you what procedures I’d gotten! I’ve gotten an IUD implanted, that makes it virtually impossible-”

“ _Well, the chance of anything happening is one in a million, and from what I’ve heard at that visitor’s day, you could very well already be at one million.  …No, but if it isn’t that, what is it?  What could be so 'delicate’ that you sound like you’re afraid I’ll turn you away?”_ , he asked, sounding a little worried again, and Sam sighed despite herself, feeling less and less secure of herself.  She knew her brother would do anything for her as long as it wasn’t illegal or immoral, but this wasn’t about her – at least, this wasn’t about her  _directly_. Taking a deep breath and steeling herself, she spoke softly.

“…I-it’s Gabriel.  You see, last week I… got to thinking about his conviction-”

“ _Sam, what… you’re not planning to do something stupid, are you?”_ , Damien instantly interrupted, and now the BLU pyro groaned softly.

“No, I’m not planning anything stupid, Damien.  I…  Last week, I arranged the fireworks show on base with the sheriff’s department, and he asked who would be my on-site assistant.  There were four viable candidates… and one of them was Gabriel.  But I… didn’t choose him-”

“ _Well, that’s perfectly normal, Sammy, there’s the pyromania, and part of the terms of RED’s contract with him has to be that he can only do what the job description says.  They’ve probably got him limited so strictly that he has to ask permission to_ breathe _, I get the feeling.”_ , Damien again interrupted, and this time Sam merely sighed and ran a hand through her hair.

“…Yes. But it’s… only in part due to the pyromania that I didn’t ask Gabriel…  I know he’s interested in fireworks-making – and I know he has the right kind of background for it, what with his master’s degree in chemistry… but with his conviction, he’s still  _stuck_ for ten years.  I didn’t want to get his hopes up only to get them dashed by the knowledge that he still has ten years, ten  _obligatory_ years, with RED.”  Suddenly, she found her heart aching even more than it had before, when she’d made the decision: taking a shivering breath, she meant to speak on, but Damien spoke up first, his voice carefully guarded and consoling above all.

“ _…Oh, Sammy… you… this really_ pains  _you, doesn’t it?”_

“I-it does, yeah…  I mean, Dami, I… I would  _love_ to work side by side with G-gabriel… I would  _adore_ making the spark transfer from my heart to his… I would  _give anything_ to see the wonder, the amazement in his eyes as he watches his own fireworks explode in a flurry of colour and light high above… B-but… Oh,  _Dami_ , he can’t, he  _c-can’t_ … and it  _breaks my heart even now…_ ”, Sam admitted, the words getting stuck in her throat every so often, but as she whispered the final words before sobbing, she felt her brother’s words wriggle their way into her brain as a kind of verbal comforting embrace, aided even more by the way he flawlessly guessed her intentions.

“ _…I can understand that… it’d break my heart, too, to see Katrin’s dreams denied and be powerless to do something about it…  So I take it you want to end that powerlessness, right? That’s why you called me?”_

“…You’re amazing with arranging my affairs, Damien – or, well, you’ve got the right kinds of friends who do you favors…  And I feel like utter  _crap_ asking you to pull those strings for  _Gabriel_ instead of for me-”  Her brother’s next words made the last remnants of sadness fall away in a heartbeat, she found, the sheer and overwhelming warmth they bore and at the same time promoted from her burning away any and all gloom.

“ _Oh, Sammy, I’ve already started equating Gabriel to you – I mean, it’s clear you’re both utterly serious and committed about each other, and I daresay the stories I heard about the both of you only reaffirmed that notion.  So anything I do for Gabriel is for you as well, and vice versa.  What do you want me to do?  If there is anything I_ can  _do – his conviction is, sadly, rock solid.  There’s no denying the arson and the damage.”_

“Y-yes, well, I wouldn’t deny the arson or the damage, but I… couldn’t it be argued that he’s already repayed his debt to the community those first ten years?  He’s doing a lot better now – he’s got me, he’s got a job, he’s got into contact with his family again… I can always contact mister Parnell at Katchan to make sure Gabriel has better job prospects for the future if his contract for RED is inextricably linked to his prison sentence – I’ll  _plead_ with the man if need be-”

“ _W-well, let’s first see what we can find out… I’ll ask Rupert to look into Gabriel’s case, see what he can come up with, but don’t expect any miracles-”_ , Damien started, and as always when he made that remark, Sam smiled and shook her head, responding mirthfully.

“I’ll stop expecting miracles when you stop  _providing_ miracles, brother dearest.  …Thanks…”

“ _…I take it Gabriel isn’t exactly as happy as he was a couple of days ago, then.”_ , Damien asked, and Sam sighed.  Her brother was by now perfect at reading her emotions from her voice alone, and she hadn’t exactly tried to hide her feeling of dejection.

“Gabriel knows.  I don’t know how he figured out that I considered him and then  _didn’t pick him_ to help me, but he figured it out and he’s been sulking slightly.  And he’s killed Tavish a couple of times more than usual.  In  _vindictive_ ways. …He still smiles, and when he’s talking to his father or when he’s with me, he’s okay, but… but I can tell he’s upset.”  Sighing again, she bit her lip and scratched her arms absent-mindedly. Gabriel had also been somewhat less… physical with her, but she would die rather than say that to Damien, let alone admit that she missed their lovemaking.  Instead, she added with a muted voice: “…I can’t help Gabriel’s past, but I am definitely willing to do whatever it takes to make his future bright and promising.”

“ _I’m sure he knows that… Gabriel’s maybe feeling a bit slighted, yes, especially if he knows that you considered him to help and didn’t pick him, but he knows that you’d go through fire for him.”_  Sam meant to answer but then she heard noise at the door leading into her workshop and she hastily spoke to her brother.

“There’s someone at the door, Dami, talk to you later – you’ll ask-?”, she started, and Damien spoke just as hastily as her.

“ _I’m calling Rupert as soon as this call’s ended, Sammy, have a nice evening.”_  They both disconnected at the same time and Sam turned to the door just in time to see Gabriel open the sliding door.  He looked a little disgruntled, as he always did ever since she’d come into their room to announce that her fireworks were done and that the display was arranged.

“…Gabriel, I… I’m sorry, I hadn’t started yet…”, she admitted, holding up her telephone.  “Damien called to ask whether we’d managed the arrangements for visiting your father and sister alright-”

“Ah, that’s… okay…”, he said with a shrug, his eyes already distant as he looked around the workshop, sighing softly and making Sam’s heart ache again.

“S-so, you didn’t have to make any more antacids today?”, she asked tentatively, prompting a snort from her lover.

“No, today I made a salve for  _fuckin’ razor burn_ , apparently Dell’s sensitive head gets a rash when he shaves too closely…”

“You sound as if you  _mind_ making a salve for Dell’s head and your own cheeks, mon amour-”, she said, her voice pleading – Gabriel almost gave her a rueful smile but then his eyes got that distant look again and Sam lost the battle against herself.  A tear leaked over her cheek, and then another, and suddenly she found herself moving quickly, nearly  _breaking_ the door out of her workshop as she ran out, dashing back into the base, ignoring Gabriel’s startled call.  She ran right for Dell’s room, knocking urgently on the door.  “D-dell-”

“Ah’m there, ah’m there…”  The door opened and the engineer, who was wearing his shirt unbuttoned and his overalls with the top half down, took one look at her, surprise turning to worry in the blink of an eye.  “S'mantha?  Aw, li'l lady, whut’s up?  Yeh look like yeh need a good cry…  C'mon… c'mon in…”  He opened the door to his workshop, revealing that Jane sat at his desk with a bottle of beer in an old T-shirt and khakis, looking at Sam in mingled horror and annoyance – she looked back in equal apprehension, stammering to the engineer.

“Oh  _n-no_ , I didn’t… I don’t want to take away your time with J-jane, I’ll go-”

“Nonsense, Sammy, Jane an’ me were jus’ talkin’…  Jane, ah’ll come git'chu when Sam’s all calmed down 'gain, okay?”  The soldier grunted something that most likely voiced how discontent he was, but Sam could only whimper feebly and that made the man’s glare soften to a mildly upset look as he passed her.  As soon as the soldier had closed the door to Dell’s room, the engineer turned to her, patting her on the shoulder.  “…Now, tell me whut’s got y'all upset, Sam…”  The pyro blurted everything out as it came to her: the sheriff’s question, the way she’d considered Gabriel, the pain she’d felt when she thought of his remaining prison sentence, her choice to have Tavish help her instead, Gabriel’s avoidance over the following days – she was evidently so upset that Dell let her bringing up the fact that she and Gabriel hadn’t made love for three days slide without even the slightest comment –  and eventually her call to her brother and Gabriel’s clear annoyance moments before.

“…a-and,  _oh Dell_ , h-he’s got every right to be upset… but it’s  _killing me_ on the inside kn-knowing that he  _deserves_ to help me b-but it’ll b-break his heart when he realizes again-”

“Don’t yeh think he  _knows_ that he ain’t got the chance tuh make fireworks fer 'least ten more years?”, Dell said mildly, prompting a deep sigh from Sam.

“I know he knows how much time he still has to serve, I just… didn’t want to  _remind_ him of it so bluntly…  G-gabriel deserves better t-than this… better than-”  She meant to continue, but suddenly a scuffle sounded right outside the door and Jane marched Gabriel in, one of the taller pyro’s arms twisted behind his back somewhat painfully.

“Look who I found  _eavesdropping_!”, he said, letting Gabriel go the second he stood before Sam and Dell – the pyro muttered vague threats at the soldier but didn’t move to punch the man, instead looking at Sam vaguely upset.  “Well, maggot,  _speak_ to her, don’t just stand there!”, the soldier grunted, which caused Gabriel to turn to him for a glare before turning back to Sam looking pained.

“J'suis désolé, mon ange… I… when ya told Dell about your call to Damien…  _merde_ , j'voulais pas te faire mal, j'le voudrais jamais…”, he said, and Sam whimpered again, feeling her heart swell to  _twice_ its size when Gabriel, finally, spoke in all honesty to her: “…I overheard you tellin’ Grant about why ya didn’t choose me to help ya and I… got gloomy again.  Part of that was because I don’t like thinkin’ about my time dans cette enfer du prison, but…  I was upset at you, mon ange, for not… for not telling me outright.  But what I did was just as bad: I took out my bad temper on you. …B-but you were thinkin’ about this, thinkin’ about how to make an impact on my life even when ya were all upset with how I was treatin’ ya, and… j'suis  _si, si désolé,_ j'mérite pas-”  Sam threw her arms around Gabriel and hid her face in his chest, sobbing freely and holding onto him for dear life – for a long while, the four of them stood in the engineer’s room in absolute silence save for her sobs, and then she pulled back a little from her lover and bit her lip, turning to Dell.

“…T-thanks, Dell, for listening… I… Gabriel and I will be out of your hair now-”

“Yeah, figure y'oughta talk t’ _each other_ instead'a me an’ Jane now.  …H-hey, but Sam, yeh know mah door ’s always open tuh yew.”, he said, and Sam gave him a broad smile which made her tearstained cheeks feel like they were being stretched to breaking point.

“I know that, Dell… Ah, I do love you like my own father… and Jane’s a good friend as well…”, she said when the soldier meant to speak up, causing the man to suddenly deflate and look at her with a half-gentle look.  “G-goodnight.”

“Yew two have a good night too, li'l lady.”, Dell said with a patient, forgiving smile, reminding her so much of her own father that Sam smiled despite herself, allowing Gabriel to gently pull her to their room for a long overdue talk and an even longer overdue moment of relaxation and intimacy.

 

Gabriel felt his heart beat erratically that Friday evening.  Since it was the last day before everyone was leaving for their holidays, he’d had absolutely nothing to do but sit around and wait for Sam to call them outside.  In the end, he found himself wandering through the RED side of the base, trying to find someone to keep him occupied – Grant or Rudolf – but the base seemed deserted.  Most of the men had been talking about going to the BLU side of the compound, which would make things easier when Sam was all set up, and Gabriel was just about to head over there as well when he stumbled upon Billy exiting his room.

“Oh, hey Dante, man!  …Heh, don’t ya look nervous – y'ain’t afraid'a fiyahworks, right?”  Gabriel’s only answer was a snort and a somewhat rude hand gesture, or at least the beginning of it, because when he considered Sam’s fireworks, he found his nervous and anxious tension returning in a heartbeat.  Billy seemed to notice it too, because he became a little apprehensive all of a sudden.  “…Yo, Dante, ya really look supah-damn-nervous, man – everythin’s okay, right?”

“Yeah, Will, everything’s okay… I’m just… I guess I just want this to go fuckin’ perfectly for Sammy, this is her first display since all the shit that happened to her.”, he said, to which Billy rolled his eyes.

“Well,  _jeez_ , Gabe, do ya think anyone wants anythin’ other than that, man? Everyone on both teams, even Chris an’ Theo tha Auss-holes, want Sammy’s display ta be perfect – for  _her_ sake an’ not theirs, ya know?”  The scout then nudged his head at the door leading outside.  “…hey, man, if ya wanna, you can come with to BLU side with me, I’m sure the othas can calm you tha fuck down.” Gabriel sighed and nodded, figuring that a little distraction would be better than silently  _dying_ of tension, and instantly Billy grinned and pulled him along.  “C'mon, then, Dante, don’t stand around all  _depressed_ …”

“Ouais, ouais, j'suis là…”, Gabriel said as he walked alongside the scout, pulling his arm loose, though he did so with a faint grin.  He admired Billy in a lot of ways: his neverending optimism, his foot-in-mouth brand of honesty, his easy-going spirit, his intelligence…  “So, you’re gonna dump me with the guys from BLU to see if ya can still get a quick li'l somethin’ done with Arch’?”, he asked, and Billy snorted.

“Unlike you an’ Sammy, me an’ Arch got  _otha_ stuff we do besides screwin’ around-”

“First of all, me an’ Sammy have other stuff we do, too, and secondly-” He halted, unsure what to add as a second argument against Billy’s thought that he and Sam didn’t do anything together apart from sleep together.  Then, he faked an offended huff as he realized something, which he voiced with a tone that was laden with satisfaction: “…And secondly,  _you and I_ never did anything besides screwing around, don’t get that mixed up with me an’ Sam.”  Billy looked shocked for a few seconds, even halting mid-stride to give Gabriel a glance that held the middle between utter offense and plain disbelief.  Then, however, he chuckled.

“Well, hard ta deny that, Dante, man…  So, ya noticed I’m kinda happier with Arch 'n I was with you, huh?”, he asked delicately, to which Gabriel responded only with a roll of his eyes.

“Will, the only one that don’t notice that is a fuckin’  _blind moron_  of a man.  Hell, I may be blind, especially when it comes to Sammy, but I’m not a moron.  …You and the BLU twitchy bastard make a fine couple, j'te jure.  …And, uh, just so ya know,  _I’m_ happier with Sammy too.  Not that I wasn’t happy with you-”

“Pfyeah right.”, Billy reacted, but there was no disbelief in his eyes anymore.  Instead, he gave his team’s pyro a look that clearly showed mirth and happiness harmoniously mingled.  His next words voiced that perfectly: “…Before Sammy, ya weren’t happy, ya were only  _less miserable_. Now, with her, you’re happy.  That’s  _good_ , man, really good.  I’m glad for ya.  At least, if you and ya miss keep it down – I don’t evah wanna hear her  _moan_ in my entire life, dude!  An’  _don’t ya dare say what ya wanna say right now!_ ”, the scout added, accurately guessing that Gabriel intended to say that he liked it when Sam moaned; the pyro gave the scout a shy grin and kept his next words soft-spoken and subdued.

“…So, uh, what’s  _your_ plans for the holidays, mon ami?”

“Ah, ya know, go ta my place – my mom’s already in holiday  _ovahdrive_ , she keeps callin’ me to ask what Archie likes ta eat an’ if he’d like this or that present, it’s freakin’  _hilarious_. An’ kinda heartwarmin’ too, 'cause he’s, like, a guy, an’ my mom nevah really said much about me likin’ guys.  Cilly ain’t bothered, she keeps askin’ when she’s gonna meet my boyfriend – she says it  _way_ cute. Then again, as far as  _she_ knows, all me an’ Arch do is hold hands and sneak kisses on the cheek like she does with  _her_ boyfriend…”, the scout admitted with a broad grin which got Gabriel lit up as well.

“Ah, que c'est mignon…  that’s cute.”  He could just imagine Billy’s little sister, pigtails and all, looking at her big brother and Archie as they held hands and giggling.  He was so caught up in the mental image that Billy had to repeat his question to draw his attention.

“Hey, dreamah, I asked ya what you an’ Sam are gonna do ovah ya holidays, mind  _answerin’_?”

“Oh, uh, sorry, man… well, for Christmas we’re goin’ over to my dad’s-” When Billy blinked, he realized that he hadn’t yet told the scout about his renewed contact with his family, causing him to tack on a bit sheepishly: “Yeah, I, uh, kinda got back in touch with him and my sister, thanks to Sammy’s brother Damien-”

“An’ ya were plannin’ on telling ya friends  _when_ , exactly?”, Billy asked, sounding a bit offended, which got Gabriel to react a little more snappishly than he’d intended.

“Yeah, well, it slipped my mind what with havin’ to arrange all the shit for me to travel to Canada – I had to apply for  _permission_ with the fuckin’ company because, in case you’d forgotten, I’m a  _convicted fuckin’ criminal_ -” Billy raised his hands in apology and Gabriel 'hmph'ed, shaking his head.  “…Sorry, man, but I didn’t intentionally not say it to ya, I thought you  _knew_. I thought Sammy told ya last weekend.”

“She ain’t told me nothin’ last weekend-”, Billy said, but just as they arrived at the door to the BLU compound, they ran into Tavish, who looked and sounded as sober as ever before.

“Ah, lads, ah jus’ come to tell yeh, the wee lass ’s ready for yoo all! She’s got a raeght brilliant show set up-”

“Hey, don’t give it away!”, Billy said, though he grinned and waited patiently for Tavish to run inside the base and get the others, who trooped out slowly, all with various degrees of expectation and nervosity on their face. Dell, for one, looked nerve-wracked, while Theo and Chris looked only slightly expectant.  But when the BLU engineer patted his shoulder in passing and nodded, Gabriel realized that he had to look most nerve-wracked of all of them.

“Her show’s gon’ be  _beautiful_ , Dante, pardner, don’t yeh worry.”, the engineer said softly, sounding hopeful rather than certain, and Gabriel nodded.

“It’s Sammy we’re talkin’ about, Dell, elle sera fantastique, comme toujours.”   _He_ sounded hopeful, too, but the tallest of the group chose to ignore that fact and just go with the sentiment, walking alongside Billy and Archie on his one side and Dell and Grant on the other, to where Sam stood waiting for them, looking the group over before noticing what she’d been looking for and pressing a button on her laptop and leaning back.  Soft music began to issue from the base’s speakers – Gabriel faintly recognized the song but he couldn’t think of the title.

“…I think I saw a spark there-”, Archie started, instantly getting shushed by five people, among which Gabriel, for whom the tension was mounting-

Suddenly, the dark night became illuminated by a sea of light as the first of the fireworks started shooting little balls of fire and sparkles into the air on either side of the entrance, their color a brilliant white – and then, overhead, rockets burst open in a burst of golden light that was again offset by the silvery sheen of the fireworks next to the entrance.  More rockets were fired, these bursting open in as many colors as Gabriel knew and then some, ever changing position – explosion after explosion filled the night’s sky and green, blue, gold, red and white mingled like the sky was a palette and a painter was splashing on layer after layer of color.  Then, when the instrumental song swelled to a crescendo, a large circle of fire slowly revved up, the sparks shooting off it blue and sparking off smaller circles of blue within, after which the color of the whole slowly changed from blue over a brilliant violet to a vibrant red. The RED pyro couldn’t tear his eyes off the sky and the spectacle, his heart seemingly have stopped and breathing superfluous, and he looked on in joy as what seemed like fiery fountains suddenly erupted on either side of the wheel, shooting sparks into the air like a volcano would spew lava and ashes.  He felt his cheeks get wet but didn’t mind: all he could do was feel reverent of Samantha’s skills at her chosen career and watch in stunned awe as her fireworks unfolded.

Another rocket fired and exploded, this one bright gold like a miniature sun, and on either side a blazing golden trail and an explosion of green created what looked like mid-air palm trees with drooping leaves. More sparks issued from the fountains next to the fiery wheel that had passed its moment and was now dying slowly and silently away – and then, Gabriel’s attention was drawn by the fireworks next to the entrance again, which fired what looked like fiery coils into the air that twisted and turned like snakes.  More rockets, these ones exploding in a heart shape – red first, then fiery gold – and then just a myriad of explosions in hues that made Gabriel’s heart ache and his cheeks hurt from how broad his grin was.  The music was becoming softer and softer, and some of the others thought that that was all she wrote, but the pyro knew better.  He’d seen the amount of fireworks Sam had created and he knew that that couldn’t be all of it, so when Billy turned to him, intent on saying something, he shook his head and motioned for the grounds in front of them with impeccable timing, because as soon as he did, red comets rose into the sky again and again, creating a brilliant fiery archway in which a glittering, almost roiling screen appeared.  It looked like a door into a new dimension, and Gabriel almost found himself setting a foot forward, ready to be  _absorbed_. He’d expected perfection from his girlfriend and got so much more. Suddenly, fire burst overhead, unannounced and completely surprising the entire group – every color all at once shone out, raining down from above like a liquid rainbow.  As soon as the first had died away, the second batch followed in the same fashion, after which louder bangs announced more bursts of color and light – these rockets had smaller bursts of different colors in between them, making each one look like an aerial bouquet of flowers, which made Gabriel grin broadly.  Just like Sam to give them all flowers.  Just like his angel to shower gifts from the heavens over all of them, he mused, resolving to voice the sentiment to Sam as soon as he could. Meanwhile, the music had once again reached a crescendo, and overhead the last of the fireworks created an effect like a sheet of pure light and energy covered the world, shimmering in silvery-blue colors before dying away along with the music.  For a while, silence was all that was heard, and then, suddenly, the halogen lights were turned on again and Yaroslav spoke loudly.

“Leetle pyro made Yaroslav very,  _very_ happy! Was very good fireworks!”  Instantly and from all sides, the rest of the men assured their lone female colleague that they’d been awed as well, giving the heavy time to walk up to Sam and hand her a small package.  “Leetle Sam deserves gift – is from everyone.  Except Danti.”, he said with a mild smile, which caused Archie to add his two cents.

“Yeah, 'cause  _Dante_ already gives her enough.”

“Oh, you are  _dead_ for that comment, p'tit connard!”, Gabriel said, though he couldn’t keep himself from grinning and walking up to Sam as well, wrapping an arm around her waist as she unwrapped the package.  The contents of it made her freeze suddenly, and when Gabriel looked at what she’d gotten from the men, his heart froze as well.  It was a book named 'A Century of Blazing Skies’, about the art of fireworks and how it’d been developed over a century from a luxury to an almost daily phenomenon.  As she quickly flipped through it, Gabriel found it heavily illustrated with photos of everything from families lighting bottle rockets to large fireworks displays.  When she arrived at an epic photograph of a fireworks display over a partying crowd, she halted, and Gabriel could see an expression of utter shock on her face.  Shock mingled with clear awe, he amended, the reason for which became clear the next second.

“Oh my… T-this is my display!”

“Quoi, vraiment?”, the RED pyro instantly asked, and everyone crowded around Sam and him to get a look at the picture while Sam read the accompanying text.

“'The New Year’s Rave, a tradition at Melbourne, Australia, received Katchan Fire’s most spectacular show yet which lit up the skies as well as the stage and brought the universe a little bit closer for the seventeen thousand ravers that crowded the location.  Katchan Fire Inc., well known for its large displays at the Fourth of July in America and Guy Fawkes Night in England, is set to become one of the world’s leading players in pyrotechnical displays for large events. Their new team of rising stars, which worked on this display, surely will set the next century’s skies ablaze.’…  My god…  I’m… stunned.”

“You are not zhe only one zhat is stunned, Zamantha… ich bin niemals so berührt gewesen von Feuerwerk, meine Freundin… zhis book zays you are zhe best, unt das ist keine Lüge.”

“’s Us that are stunned an’ flattered, Sammy, li'l lady, y'outdid yerself yet again…  Yew are  _amazin_ ’ an’ ah’ve never been more proud'a yer work!”, Dell said, his blue eyes glittering conspicuously, and Jane nodded solemnly.

“That fireworks display you made was astounding, Samantha, and you are a  _blessing_ for this team!”, he said – though he spoke in his usual army sarge voice, Gabriel noticed, his voice was  _warm_ for once, and he grinned from beginning to end.  In the end, it was that which drove Sam to give a quiet little sob and press the book to her chest, over her heart which had to be beating at top speed.

“You guys… thank you, thank you  _so much_! I couldn’t have wished for a better start of my holiday season-”

“Neither could we, Sam, pardner.”, Grant admitted, to which everyone quickly chimed in before they started migrating back inside, where they could properly celebrate the start of their vacation with their last gathering of the year.  Siegfried and Rudolf mentioned hot chocolate and 'glühwein’, which got everyone crowding inside at top speed, but Gabriel held Sam back for a second so he could speak in private to her.

“Samantha, ma belle ange… I  _know_ I won’t be able to make fireworks for a long time to come, and I _know_ the company will have a heart attack if I request permission for it, but… mais c'était trop… miraculeux…  Your heart shone today – and I don’t just mean that rocket explosion.  J'ai vu la magie dont t'as parlée, mon ange, et j'en veux participer…  Please,  _please_ , can ya teach me?  That book says you’re one of the greatest fireworks makers in the world, mon ange, and who better than the greatest to teach me?”  For a few seconds, he could see apprehension and hesitation on his girlfriend’s face, which prompted him to add: “J'prends tout mesure de sécurité que tu demandes.  J'fais tout. J'veux même te faire de la crème de peau pour te remercier, je te jure!”

“Oh, Gabriel, you don’t have to do anything in return, I’d  _love_ to teach you… oh…”  Her smile said that she wasn’t going to say no even before her lips moved, and he grinned as a result.  “…Oh, okay, we’ll call the Administrator after the holidays and ask her if I could teach you pyrotechnics – but if the company says 'no’, we’re  _not_ going to go behind their backs and teach you anyway.  If they decide to send you back to prison-”

“…Ouais, t'a raison, mon ange, I ain’t losin’ you, not even over some fireworks…  Thanks… havin’ you trust me enough, that makes me feel great, mon ange parfaite…”, he admitted as he once again wrapped his arm around her waist and gently pulled her along inside, back to the others who would probably want to talk to her all in turn about the fireworks while its splendor was still fresh in their memories.


	35. Release the doves, surrender love - Warm Holidays part 1

Chapter 34: Release the doves, surrender love – Warm holidays part 1

 

“T'as tout?”, Gabriel asked for the fifth time the next morning, prompting Sam to turn to her boyfriend, one hand on her hip and the other holding her purse.  Her tone wasn’t as exasperated as it had been before, instead being moderately sympathetic and lightly teasing.

“ _Honestly_ , Gabriel, I get that you’re excited, but my answer won’t be different the  _tenth_ time from the _first_ time – yes, I have everything, and no, I haven’t forgotten anything, I’ve even remembered  _you…_ ” That, if anything, gained her a grin from Gabriel, who relaxed slightly and walked over to her.

“Okay, yeah, I’m maybe a little nervous-”

“’ _Maybe a little nervous’_ , he says…”, Sam remarked jokingly, being rewarded for her teasing by a sharp squeeze of her bottom and a kiss on the top of her head as Gabriel amended his previous statement.

“Okay, yeah, I’m definitely high-strung… but can ya blame me?  I haven’t seen mon papa et ma chère soeurette for ten years…   _dix ans_! T'comprends pas comment j'suis nerveux.  T'peux pas le comprendre complètement.”

“Oh, believe me, I do.  I was just as nervous starting here… and just as nervous coming back after my surgeries… and  _even more nervous_ when we talked again after we’d, uh, had our little troubled times…”, she said mildly, causing Gabriel to sigh as he always did when any one of them brought up those three weeks where they hadn’t spoken. Yet, uncharacteristically, he instantly followed up her admission with a question.

“You mean ya were anxious to talk to me again too?”

“I don’t really mean that I was anxious to talk to you – which I was, rest assured, but I was a little worried that… well, not all the dreams I had that kept me awake at night in those weeks were _nightmares_ , mon amour… I kind of… relived that one night a couple of times, in detail, and  _without_ me panicking…  And as a result, when we talked again and patched things up, I was a little worried that I couldn’t keep off you, especially with your note saying that you wanted nothing more than to hug me-”  Gabriel swept her into his arms, causing her to drop her purse in favor of wrapping her arms around her boyfriend as they kissed passionately.  Sam could do nothing but whimper feebly as one of Gabriel’s hands tangled in her hair to hold her in place while the other hand moved down her back to her bottom, giving it another squeeze before pulling her against him.  Unsurprisingly, however, Gabriel pulled away again all too soon, leaving her aflame with the need her boyfriend so effortlessly inspired in her with even a light touch or kiss, let alone a fierce and needful one like they’d shared just heartbeats ago – but when he spoke, she found she couldn’t argue with him.

“ _Merde_ , Samantha, I… I had that too.  I had to hold myself back from hugging you, ‘cause if I held you, I wouldn’t let you go anymore… And now… ah, now all I want is to pull you back into that bedroom and  _ravish_ ya like you  _deserve_ to be ravished, but I’ve gotta hold myself back  _again_. If we misbehave now, we’re missing our airplane.”

“Yes, and that’s not going to happen.”, Sam admitted, smiling a little ruefully when she added under her breath: “No matter if we both need each other now.”  Of course Gabriel heard, and of course he reacted with a crooked grin that betrayed his thoughts much better than his words did, though they already did a fine job setting the tone of his mind this time.

“…Well, there’s always the Mile High Club – the flight’s short but we can manage, I think-”

“Are you honestly saying you want me to indulge you on an  _airplane toilet_?”, she remarked, to which he rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Yeah, maybe not the best idea…  Anyway, j'suis assez nerveux comme ci, we don’t have to add to that.”  Sam meant to speak up and tell her boyfriend that he didn’t need to worry, that his father and sister would be just like he remembered them, save perhaps a few grey hairs and worry-wrinkles that the years had added – like she had done every time when he’d been worrying the previous days, to which he’d always answered with a shy smile – but now he surprised her by tacking on the source of his worries, which surprised her: “…I mean, they’re gonna have  _high expectations_ about me bringin’ home a  _girl_ … j'veux que tout soit parfait quand je t'introduis à eux.  I want them to be  _blown away_ by ya just as much as the guys were, an’ even more so.”

“Are you… genuinely worried that your father and sister won’t like me?”, Sam asked, nonplussed, nearly laughing softly at the thought but holding herself back a little for the sake of Gabriel’s brittle self-confidence and sanity.  Her lover clearly had been worrying about the way his father and sister thought of her as well as worry about the way they’d treat him upon seeing him again.  He’d even been toying with the idea of shaving off his goatee to appease his father, something he’d said he would never in a million years consider: it had taken firm but very deliberate convincing from Sam that he looked great with it and that she loved it to get him not to take his razor to it anyway.  When Gabriel nodded, looking helplessly at her, she sighed and spoke with a warm, reassuring smile: “Gabriel, I’ll make sure I look picture perfect no matter how much we might misbehave on the plane – I’ve got my makeup and perfume in my carry-on bag, I’ve got a spare set of clothes in case something gets spilled on these, I’ve even got  _emergency shoes_ in this bag.  And you know I’m perfectly behaved and charming.”

“Ah, non, c'est pas… I wasn’t worried about  _you_ not bein’ perfect, Sammy, it’s just… I’m just worried they’ll either expect ya to be a tomboy or to be some kind of supermodel, and hell, you’re perfect to me in every way… ahh, ton corps, tes seins… j'en rêve tout le temps…”, he admitted, letting his eyes wander over her form so emphatically that it felt like his hands did the wandering instead, making Sam blush softly again.  “…I’m just afraid they’ve got expectations ya can’t live up to, no matter how amazing you are.”, he finished meekly, his shoulders drooping: it was the latter, which gave Gabriel the air of a puppy standing alone in the rain waiting for an owner that wouldn’t turn up, that made Sam finally chuckle and shake her head.

“Oh, Gabriel, mon amour… that’s what’s keeping you so glum?  …Let me tell you a little something…”, she said, pulling her lover against her gently and allowing her hands to rub soothingly over his back as she spoke on: “…When the visitor’s day came closer and you were about to meet Damien, I worried just like you did.  I mean, my thoughts were a  _mess_. I am talking full-on anxiety the likes of which you’ve never seen in little ol’ me.  'What if Damien will be horrified by the fact that Gabriel’s older than him?’, 'Will he make any kind of comment on Gabriel’s hands, and how will Gabriel take that?’, and even 'What if Damien catches me kissing Gabriel, or Gabriel kissing me, and goes into 'older brother’-mode and it doesn’t work on Gabriel because he’s actually  _older_?’ - I mean, you name the thought and it probably passed through my mind, no matter how silly it seems now.”

“Oh, ya seemed perfectly calm to me.”, Gabriel admitted, shaking his head, the tension in his shoulders slowly fading away under her fingertips.

“…Well, you seemed calm to me until a few minutes ago as well, mon âme.  But what I’m saying is this: don’t worry about the expectations of your father and your sister.  They  _love_ you, and they’ll see that I love you too, and that you love me – that’ll be all they’re looking for, I swear.  Just like Damien didn’t protest much because it’s clear that, no matter the age difference and no matter anything else, we’re deeply in love…”  She let her voice trail off, and slowly Gabriel’s features turned from worried to loving and then to slightly indulgent again as he leaned his forehead against hers and then kissed her lightly and tenderly.

“…Oh, where would I be without ya, mon ange?”

“Probably goin’ with Billy to New York?”, she tried, getting a soft snort from Gabriel.

“J'te jure, if I hadn’t met you, me and Billy would’ve ended things just the same, only not over  _you_. I was fuckin’ lousy to him.  …I’m never gonna be that fuckin’  _horrible_ to you, mon ange – si j'te trahis un jour, j'mourrais d'honte.”, the taller pyro admitted, sighing somewhat sadly before giving her a half-grin and adding on: “…All I need in life is you, mon ange de feu.  You, and everything you are and do.  T'es mon complément.”

“And you mine, mon amour.”, Sam answered before kissing Gabriel just as lightly and tenderly as he’d kissed her before, smiling up at him once they parted.  “…Now, do you think our taxi to the airport’s already here?”

“Arrived five minutes ago.”, Gabriel said, wiggling his cellphone in front of her face as he walked over to their dinnertable, on which he’d put their bags.  Sam blushed softly as she remembered having heard a bleep while she and Gabriel had been enjoying each other’s proximity – clearly it had been her lover who had been the more attentive one for a moment, swept up by his passion as she’d been.

“Gabriel, and you still kept kissing me?”, she asked, prompting another snort from her boyfriend.

“Hell, if we had the time for it, I would’ve done ya – doesn’t matter if I pay a little extra for the damn taxi, c'est toi la plus importante à ce moment-la.  …But you’re right, we should be leavin’.  If we miss that plane because we’re dawdlin’ here, j'mourrais.  My dad and Belle are expectin’ us and we need to be there-”

“And we’ll be there.  …Okay, do  _you_ have everything, mon amour?”, she asked with a soft wink that had Gabriel grin as he loudly ticked his mental checklist.

“Bags? Check.  Coat?  Check.  Carry-on bag with some readin’ material and such for the trip?  Check.  Mon ange de feu?  Let’s see…”  He pulled her in again for another, more heated and languid, kiss, and Sam allowed him to indulge for a few seconds, after which he pulled back and whispered into her ear: “ _Check and double-check._ ”

“You, monsieur Dantan, are lucky you’ve got your incredibly good looks to counterbalance that utter self-satisfaction-”, Sam started with a broad grin on her face, but Gabriel didn’t yet relent.

“T'es sûre qu'on peut pas s'amuser un tout p'tit peu sur cet avion?  Mon envie de toi ne disparait pas, mon ange… I can’t help that I need you so badly…”  Sam rolled her eyes but bit her lip, unable to deny that she’d also been set alight by their previous kisses.

“…I shouldn’t indulge you… but okay, okay, we’ll see what we can manage without getting sent off the plane, we’ll still need to travel  _back_ with that airline, you know…”

 

The closer they got to the Arrivals hall, the more nervous Gabriel was getting, despite the endorphins still racing his system.  They hadn’t chanced it in the airplane since it was overcrowded, but once they were back on terra firma…  For a fleeting second, Gabriel grinned again – then, however, the nerves got the better of him again and he groaned, drawing Sam’s attention.  She looked picture perfect even despite how adventurous they’d been only minutes before – he’d taken care to give her no lovebites on her neck, even – and that reassured him a little.  But only a little.

“…Mon amour, relax, they’ll like me, and they’ll love you – they’ve never  _stopped_ loving you…”, Sam said sagely next to him, gripping his calloused hand in hers and running her fingertips over the scars on the back of it, soothing him for a few seconds.

“I know they never stopped lovin’ me, but… j'sais pas, guess I’m just a little… anxious…  They saw my pic on the company website, but that’s a couple of years old – what if they don’t like the way I look?  What if they ask what happened to my hands?”, he said, lifting the hand holding hers up a little, causing Sam to smile up at him consolingly.

“Just… be honest.  That’s what they  _expect_ you to do, mon amour: be honest about those ten years.  Tell them about Lander, about Billy, about the pyromania, about the drinking and the sleeping around-”  Then, she halted, pondering for a few moments clearly before adding in a softer, meeker tone: “…Okay, maybe  _mention_ the sleeping around but not be  _too honest_ about it…  But be  _open_ about it.  They won’t hate you for what happened.  I’m certain they just like having you back in their lives.”

“Now that’s mutual, and I’m makin’ sure they  _know_ that. If they think I didn’t contact 'em 'cause I didn’t _wanna_ contact 'em…”  Sam meant to speak up, clearly, but they’d arrived in the hall by then and Gabriel tensed again without properly realizing it, scanning the crowd for his father and sister, finding neither. Sighing, his shoulders drooped, and he was just about to turn to Sam and voice his disappointment to her – superfluously, because her thumb had been drawing soothing circles already on the sensitive back of his hand – when a soft voice from his right issued.

“Gabriel? I-it’s you, isn’t it?”  Turning to the source of the voice, he noticed his sister, looking slightly startled but at the same time incredibly happy to see him, and instantly his smile grew broad enough to get his cheeks stuck that way permanently.

“Annabelle! Qu'il m'rend heureux de te revoir!  Oh,  _hell_ , I missed ya…”  Instantly, his sister threw her arms around him, and he let go of Sam’s hand in order to squeeze his sister gently against him in a bear hug.  “…Merde, ça m'rend trop heureux de t'revoir, Belle… You can’t believe how good it is to really finally see ya again!  A-and dad?  Papa, ou est-il?”

“He’s at the coffee bar over there, dying of nerves, frèrot – he’s seventy-two, his eyes aren’t what they used to be anymore, and he was too nervous to be able to concentrate enough on picking you out of a crowd of a hundred-plus people…. And it’s great to see you too. T'as grandi, je crois, ou c'est moi qui a diminué de taille-”

“No, it’s just been too damn long since ya last saw me, Annabelle – but I  _swear_ , that’s all over an’ done with.  J'suis un homme nouveau.”  When Sam grabbed his hand again, gently and unintrusively, Gabriel gave her a soft smile before turning to his sister again: “By the way, this is my girlfriend – no, _the woman of my life_ , Samantha Tennant.  Sammy, this is Annabelle Jordan, my sister.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, misses Jordan-”, Sam said, offering her hand, but Annabelle, to Gabriel’s infinite joy, shook her head and spoke even as she drew the BLU pyro in to give her three kisses on the cheeks.

“You can call me Annabelle.  …Ah, Gabriel, elle est bien plus jeune que toi, non?  Au moins cinque ans-”

“Onze, et je m'en fous de son age – de  _notre_ age, même.  Je l'aime.”, Gabriel instantly returned, grinning at Sam, who grinned back and nodded, speaking up in plain English to the woman.

“My elder brother, Damien, needed a little time to adjust to the age difference as well, but seeing as my boyfriend’s even older than  _him_ , that was to be expected.  And rest assured, Annabelle, I may be younger than Gabriel but I’m by no means less serious about us than he is.  I love him deeply, as he loves me.”  Whatever protests his sister meant to voice died away instantly when Gabriel leaned down to give Sam a light kiss, that she answered with the same measure of tenderness and clear affection.  Instead, she gave them a soft smile.

“You certainly look happy together… but, well, I’ve always thought that Gabriel only ever fell for  _older men_ -”

“Annabelle, c'mon, just because Jacques was a couple of years older-”, Gabriel reacted instantly, but then he halted, shook his head and changed track mid-sentence: “-me taquines pas, Belle – who cares about the people I used to be with?  I love Sammy, and I ain’t leavin’ her, for nothin’ or no one, j'le jure.  Why do you think I brought her here?  Who d'you think made me believe I still had a place in your lives?”, he said, and his sister looked taken aback by his brutal honesty.  Slowly, she nodded, and after a few seconds she spoke, her voice soft and uncharacteristically demure.

“…Bien, je vois bien que vous êtes plus que juste des amoureux… you’re more than just lovers.  She looks at you like…”  For a second, his sister seemed to debate whether what she was about to say was okay to mention, but then she spoke bluntly and honestly: “She looks at you like mom used to look at dad when we were younger – you maybe don’t remember it, but I do.  And you look at her in the exact same way, like she’s all you’ll ever need.”

“That’s  _exactly_ how we both feel about the other – as long as we have each other, we don’t need anything else.”, Sam said, smiling broadly – probably more for Annabelle’s benefit than his, Gabriel mused, but he couldn’t help but kiss her on the cheek and grin broadly as he nodded to confirm her words to his sister.  “…So, why are we still standing around here?  I’m sure Gabriel’s more than anxious to see your father again, and I’m sure your father is on tenterhooks as well.”  Again she proved just how perfect she’d become at reading him, Gabriel mused absent-mindedly, something that Annabelle seemed to guess as well.

“Elle te connait trop bien déjà, frèrot… it’s like you’re childhood sweethearts, what with how effortlessly she knows exactly what’s on your mind.”

“Elle me sait comme j'étais le sien toute sa vie.”, Gabriel admitted, translating for Sam even though he knew that she wouldn’t need it: “She knows me like I was meant for her from the very beginning.”

“Qui a dit que ce n'est pas comme ça, mon amour?”, she said slyly, causing Annabelle to look at his girlfriend in surprise and Gabriel to laugh loudly, causing a few heads to turn their way but just as quickly turn away again.  If he’d thought Sam was perfect before, it had clearly been nothing more than an illusion, because her answering him back in flawless French made his heart nearly leap out of its place in his chest.  Sighing and giving her a look that clearly showed how much he loved her and in what detail he’d voice it as soon as they were alone, he turned first to his sister with a broad, thoroughly happy grin.

“Annabelle, puis-je t'introduire à l'ange qui me garde et m'améliore tous mes jours dès que je l'ai rencontré?”, he said, wrapping one arm around Sam’s shoulders loosely, and Annabelle chuckled lightly as well when she cast the two of them a soft look.

“Enchantée, j'suis sûre…”

“Enchantée, oui.”, Sam answered with a grin before explaining: “I’ve studied in France for a year – I’m a pyrotechnician by trade, and I got offered an internship with one of the main prize winners of the Festival des Arts Pyrotechniques that year – so my French is okay-”

“Okay? C'est prèsque parfait, ma chère… dad’s going to love her, Gabriel, allons…”  She led the way to the coffee bar at the corner of the Arrivals hall, which was jam-packed with people that had come fresh from their airplanes and in desperate need of caffeine – but at one of the tables off to the side sat the man that Gabriel remembered instantly, a pang of mingled regret and joy shooting through his heart at the sight of him.  His hair was a little shorter and his wrinkles had deepened over the course of ten years, but his beard was still meticulously kept and his eyes were still as shrewd as ever.  Bringing a hand to his chest, he was unsurprised when it was joined a heartbeat later by Sam’s hand, giving his a slight squeeze to show she was by his side as they walked over to the man, who only looked up when they were only ten steps away from him – but when he did notice them, he slowly rose from his chair, looking at the RED pyro as though he’d seen a ghost.

“Gabriel? Oh, mon dieu, c'est vraiment toi?”  Gabriel couldn’t help but grin broadly and shyly.

“Ouais, c'est vraiment moi.  Dois-je te pincer?”

“…Je suis en train d'halluciner, j'en suis sûr… t'as grandi ou quoi? Et ce barbichette, c'est ridicule, je te dis…”, he said softly, shaking his head – but when he looked at Gabriel, he was smiling broadly, showing just how much he meant of his dislike for the little patch of unruly blond hairs he’d grown over his chin.  It was that smile that made Gabriel extend his arms a little sheepishly to his father, who nodded and gladly allowed Gabriel to hug him.  It felt a little awkward – hugging his sister had been soothing, but his father was a different story.  His sister, he didn’t feel as much obligation towards as his father, the only parent he had left: when he’d left Canada – when he’d  _fled_ Canada, he corrected mentally – he’d cried more bitterly over disappointing his father than he’d cried over letting his sister down.  However, when he felt his father’s shoulders shake as he held him, more gently than Annabelle before, he looked at the man in clear surprise, seeing tears run over the man’s weathered face.  “Qu-quoi, j'peux pas pleurer d'joie de te revoir, Gabri’?”, he reacted with heavily forced snappishness – his smile did already show that he was nowhere as annoyed as he’d meant to sound, and Gabriel sobbed lightly as well, unable to contain his emotions at the present moment.

“T’m'as manqué aussi, papa… ah, que c'est fantastique de t'revoir, et Annabelle aussi…  _merde_ , que c'est franchement incroyable…”, he muttered, grinning from ear to ear, barely hearing Sam speak to his sister.

“…Okay,  _now_ I see the resemblance – they’re both typical men, aren’t they?  No emotions until they nearly explode…”

“Heh, oui.  Dad’s as typical as they come, and Gabriel… well, he takes after papa a lot more than he ever felt comfortable with-”

“C'est du mensonge, Belle, j'ai toujours aimé ressembler papa!”, Gabriel reacted without looking up, but he did use the excuse to give his father a final quick squeeze before letting go and turning to the two women who were smiling broadly.  “I never felt uncomfortable resembling dad, he’s a  _good man_ , it’s just… we have such similar characters, we clashed  _horribly_ a lot of the time.”  To his surprise, his father nodded and spoke as well.

“Oui, mais tout ça est long passé.  T’m'as tellement manqué, Gabri’, t'as aucune idée.  Mais a ce moment-ci… tous les dix ans passés sans toi me semblent loin déjà.  …On y va?”, he asked, and Gabriel nodded.

“Ouais, on y va.  Let’s go.”

“On passe au premier chez toi, j'pense que tu veux t'coucher dans ton propre lit durant que t'es ici, non?”, Marc Dantan asked, prompting Gabriel to grin and nod.

“Bien sûr!”

 

As they pulled up at the driveway, Sam still felt a little incredulous, even if Gabriel had shown her pictures of his house.  It had looked cosy enough – small, maybe, but that was simply because Gabriel had been alone when he bought it, so that was understandable – but there was something about it that hadn’t come forward from just the paper and the computer screen.  Not to mention it was larger than the pictures had made it out to be.

“…Wow, Annabelle, ya really  _maintained_ it…”, Gabriel admitted next to her, his voice betraying his awe and his hand squeezing hers gently before he spoke up again: “…So, Sammy, what d'ya think of my home?”

“I-it’s nice… it’s beautiful, I mean.”, she quickly corrected, giving a shaky smile at her lover, causing him to gently pull her closer for a second as Annabelle cut the engine.

“Oh, does finally seein’ my house for real make ya all shy?”

“I… it looks… so different from those pictures you showed me.”, the BLU pyro admitted, looking the house over again.  It had three floors, a nice front yard with some flowerbeds, a well-paved driveway, and she could see a big and well-kept back yard as well through the fence next to the house: it seemed so very unlike what she’d thought it would look like, considering when and why Gabriel had bought it.  However, in what amounted to a staggering display of insight on her boyfriend’s behalf, he guessed her thoughts and nodded solemnly, speaking in a soft and subdued tone.

“…J'sais, it’s not exactly the kind of house you’d expect to be the home of a pyromaniac like me, mais quand tu vois l'intérieur-”  Then, he turned to his sister, eyeing her nervously as he asked: “T'as pas rédécoré?”

“J'ai maintenu ton maison, Gabriel, j'en ai pas fait autre chose.  I just kept the lawn tidy and cleaned the entire inside once a year.  Twice this year.  Louis helped – that’s my husband, Louis Jordan, he’s a dream of a man.  It takes a special kind of man to bear the irregular hours and high demands people ask of doctors nowadays, and he takes it all in stride.”, she explained to Sam, causing her to grin at the older woman.

“I’ll love meeting him, I’m sure.  …Okay, so let’s go see  _inside_ your house, mon amour-”  Gabriel got out of the car with a broad grin, walking around it with big strides to open her door and offering her his hand so she could get out all the quicker, she noticed with a smile – and once she stood outside, breathing in the fresh air deeply, he wrapped an arm around her waist and spoke softly to her so his sister couldn’t hear him.

“J'veux te montrer ma maison en bref maintenant et ce soir, quand nous sommes seuls, j'veux bien te demander ou on va s'amuser, donc, sois attentive, d'accord?”  Her shiver could easily be mistaken for a reaction to the cold and her blush for the effects of that same wintry freshness in the air, but Sam felt like Gabriel had lit a fire inside of her that kept the air around her within a tropic temperature range.  However, instead of teasing her further, Gabriel seemed to prefer going inside as well now, motioning for Annabelle to lead the way, which the woman did until right outside the front door, where she paused and turned to her brother.

“…Gabriel, j'ai jamais pensé… I never thought I’d be able to do this, but… ton clé à toi, frèrot…”, she said, handing the front door key to him.  For a second, Sam thought Gabriel would break down in tears then and there, but he merely took a shaky breath and nodded with conspicuously glittering eyes before unlocking the front door slowly, his movements exactly measured and calm.  Then, he pushed open the door and walked in, pulling Sam along.

“…Wow, you… ya weren’t kidding when ya said you only cleaned – it’s still got everything right where I left it!  Down to my damn house slippers…”, he admitted shyly – looking next to the small hallway cupboard, Sam saw a pair of fluffy pink slippers and laughed despite herself, making Gabriel turn to her with a broad self-mocking grin on his features.  “Quoi?  Oui, ils sont roses, il n'y a rien de mal avec des pantoufles roses sur les pieds d'un homme!  C'est pas de faux pas!”

“Never said it was wrong, love, I’m just mentally picturing you with  _fluffy pink slippers_ …”

“You don’t gotta picture it.”, Gabriel said, kicking off his shoes for a moment and putting the slippers on, sighing.  “Man, they still fit like a dream, even – donc, regardes, mon ange, this is probably the first time ya are gonna see me with pink fluffy slippers…”, Gabriel said, spreading his arms as if to display himself, causing Samantha to chuckle lightly and glance her boyfriend over.  He managed to pull the look off, funnily enough: the pink slippers, glittering slightly with each movement of his feet as he slowly turned for her, fitted together somewhat with his bright red woollen sweater and his black pants.    “Wait… I think I know what’s gonna make this  _fuckin’ perfect_ …”, he added: opening the small cupboard, he pulled out a second pair of slippers, that one a brilliant white but just as fluffy and glittery as the ones he had on, handing them to her.  “Oh, j'le jure, c'est comme ci j'ai prévu que t'serait ici aujourd'hui… ils accordent avec ton pull blanc, mon ange…”, he said softly as she slipped off her high-heeled shoes and put on the slippers, sighing happily at how soft they were and marvelling at the fact that Gabriel was right. He’d had those perfectly fitting slippers that matched with her fluffy white sweater as if they’d been made of the same wool.

“I’d like to think of this as a  _sign_ , mon amour, that we  _belong together_.”, she said, prompting Gabriel’s father to lightly blush and give Sam a smile that could only mean he appreciated her love for his son. Acknowledging his nonverbal compliment with a smile of her own and a nod, she continued: “But show me more, Gabriel…”

“Oui. C'mon in, Sammy, to my hallway… the livin’ room and dinin’ room’s over there, the kitchen’s right next to the dining room, then a door leadin’ to the basement, and that’s the downstairs toilet and bathroom over there.  It doesn’t have much, just a toilet, a sink, an’ a small shower-”, he started, but the thought of a fully equipped bathroom on the ground floor surprised Sam so much that she interrupted him.

“Why… why d'you have a  _shower_ in your downstairs bathroom?”

“…T'sais jamais?”, he said with a somewhat confused look, and Annabelle pulled Sam aside for a second to whisper in her ear.

“I think he had it put in there because he could wash off the scent of smoke quickly when he came home…”  Nodding, Sam turned to Gabriel and gave him a somewhat soothing and apologetic smile that had her boyfriend nod minutely – it not only showed he had heard what his sister had said and that that was indeed the case, but it also clearly displayed that her love for him despite all of his 'sins’ lifted his spirits.  Then, however, his smile grew warmer and broader again as he walked to the door leading into his living room.  It was decorated a little old-fashioned, with a plushy rug underneath the low table in the middle of the room and two flower-patterned sofas standing against the outside walls and with a television cupboard standing right next to the door.

“Donc, my living room.  …Heh, hasn’t changed a bit either – Belle, did ya miss me so much?”

“Dois-je vraiment te répondre, frèrot?  …I had your floo cleaned once every two years, too, so…”  The rest of Annabelle’s words was lost on Sam as she followed the woman’s gesture and found herself looking right at the largest fireplace she’d seen in any house.  It spanned most of the wall between the living room and the dining room and it was made so that you could look into it from  _both_ rooms. What with her boyfriend’s pyromania, it was little to no surprise that he’d have a fireplace, but it was more elaborate than she’d bargained for.  Gabriel, evidently having noticed her look of stunned awe, walked up to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, speaking softly to her.

“Oui, so, I kinda lavished on an  _open fireplace…_ but it did what I meant for it to do, some nights just sittin’ in my sofa and watching the flames was enough…”

“Oh, n-no, Gabriel, I’m not thinking… I just…”, she stammered, taking a second to organize her thoughts and then continuing in a firm but awed voice: “I expected you to have a fireplace, but this one… it’s beautiful, Gabriel.  I can imagine how you could spend hours looking at it, staring into the flames…”  Her boyfriend smiled at her, looking utterly pleased at her acceptance and even appreciation of his fireplace – his sister and father gave Sam a mild and glad look as well, she noticed from the corner of her eye as Gabriel gently kissed her forehead, communicating that he would love nothing more than to give her a more passionate and loving kiss but restrained himself for the sake of his father and sister.  Pulling her a little more tightly against himself, he grinned.

“Heh, merci beaucoup, mon ange, I’ll light it sometime tonight just for you, okay?  …Donc, mon salle à manger, c'est pas grand mais il sert son but…”, he said, pushing open a small, almost unnoticeable door next to the fireplace that led into the dining room, which held a few low cupboards as well as a table that could seat six.  It was a somewhat cramped space, as if Gabriel had tried fitting a family into a single man’s household, but to Sam it looked homely.  It was crowded, sure, but she could easily imagine Gabriel sitting at the covered and fully decked out table that was laden with food, laughing and telling stories to the people that mattered to him – and reaching across the plates to hold her hand and squeeze it to show her he loved her…  Involuntarily, she reached for Gabriel’s hand and gave it a light squeeze, which got him to reciprocate and give her a dazzling, broad smile that said 'this is all yours now as well’ better than any words could manage.  “…Mon ange, j'suis déjà en train d'arranger notre premier repas dans cette chambre, just so ya know-”

“Gabri, penses pas qu'elle le  _sait_ déjà?”, Marc Dantan reacted with a soft grin that suited him somehow – now, seeing him with that look on his face, Sam understood all the better why the man hadn’t liked having his picture taken because he 'looked like a scoundrel’ on them.

“Monsieur Dantan, je ne vois que maintenant d'où Gabriel a reçu sa bonne mine et son charme.  Vous êtes bien charmant et aimable-”

“Gabriel, ne la laisse jamais partir, t'entends?  …Mademoiselle Tennant, Samantha, mon fils et toi, vous faites très bon ménage… je t'en prie, ne lui laisse jamais.  Je vois bien que tu lui rends heureux… et qu'il t'as donné son coeur et te rend heureuse au même temps. Ah, l'amour, qu'elle est belle chose…”, he admitted in the end, and Sam smiled broadly as she wrapped an arm around Gabriel’s waist.

“Je vous promets de lui garder près de moi.  Je ne lui laisserai jamais me quitter, et je ne lui quitterai jamais.  Je veux même le vous  _jurer_ -”

“Pas d'besoin… no need, Samantha.  Gabriel, I second dad: don’t you ever let her go, she’s  _right_ for you.  No one else took your pyromania in stride like she does, and it takes a special kind of person, man or woman, to look at dad and call him 'charmant’-”

“Hey, c'est quoi ça?!  T'penses pas que ton père bien aimé est un homme charmant, ou quoi?!”, Marc Dantan said loudly, looking at his daughter with a mock glare – while the two bickered softly in French, Gabriel leaned against Samantha and whispered to her.

“…ya can’t believe how happy I am right now… my dad loves ya, my sister loves ya, they’re so happy to see me again… they  _missed me_ …”

“Oh, I can believe it.”, Sam said softly, grinning broadly and kissing her boyfriend lightly – or allowing him to kiss her lightly, whichever applied to the situation – which drew the attention of the others to them again and caused Gabriel to blush softly as they cleared their throats ostensibly.

“…Ahem, bien, quand on est fini d'me regarder comme si j'ai commis d'hérésie en donnant un p'tit bisou à mon ange… I wanna show you my kitchen, Sammy.”

“Where you’ll be making all that caramel for me?  Lead the way, mon amour!”, Sam said with a broad, indulgent grin – it was hard for her  _not_ to grin since Gabriel did so, showing he wasn’t the least bit sorry or ashamed for having kissed her and for having less-than-pure thoughts about how he’d kiss her once they were alone, she was sure – following her boyfriend at his heels as he walked to the next door.

 

“…Donc, Gabriel, I’ll come get you tomorrow at two thirty for going to dad’s, okay?”, Annabelle said, and Gabriel nodded softly, smiling at his sister.

“D'accord, Belle.  …Oh man, I can’t wait, can ya believe it?  I’m wishin’ it was tomorrow already!  J'veux voir tes deux enfants aussi – j'peux à peine pas croyer que t'as une fille mignonne et un fils maintenant… t'étais pas-”

“Oui, j'étais enceinte quand t'as fuit, Gabriel, mais n'en penses pas… don’t think about that, what matters is that you’re here now and that you’ll meet my family.  …Just so you know, they’ll expect _huge_ Christmas gifts-”, she joked, and Gabriel snorted.  She maybe meant it in jest but he was serious as ever as he answered the sentiment.

“Hell, they’re gettin’ 'em, too.  From me  _and_ from Sammy.  I mean, we’re going to have to order 'em and send 'em to your home so they won’t actually get their gifts for  _Christmas,_ but-”

“Mais j'plaisanterais!  Gabri’, I was joking… tu dois pas les pouponner-”

“Mais j'le veux, et Sam aussi, j'en suis sûr.  Let us, we make a killin’ doing what we do, and what else are we gonna spend it on?  Donc, qu'est-ce qu'ils veulent?”  His sister blushed softly before answering.

“Alors, si t'es sûr… David is  _obsessed_ with model aeroplanes to the point of  _taking them to bed_ with him, so if you buy him one, or two, he’s going to be your adoring fan forever… and Lisette lives and breathes princess.”  Nodding slowly, Gabriel absorbed the ideas and then smiled at his sister.

“Merci – and you and Louis are getting a scandalously huge gift too-”

“Gabriel, j'espère bien que tu rigoles!”, Annabelle reacted with an expression of shock clear on her features, causing Gabriel to lightly laugh and shake his head.

“J'rigoles pas.  I missed ya for  _ten fuckin’ years_ , Belle, I’ve got a lot to make up for in the gifts department-”

“You’ve got  _nothing_ to make up for in  _no_ department  _whatsoever_ , Gabriel, t'revoir est déjà le meilleur cadeau que t’m'as donné. And to see you  _happy_ again… well, that just makes it even more beautiful.  Elle te complète, c'est facile à voir.”  Gabriel smiled and nodded, looking behind him to see whether the door to his living room, where Sam sat watching a television show, was closed before speaking softly to his sister.

“Elle fait plus que me compléter, Belle…. j'pense qu'elle m'a sauvé d'un sort plus pire que t'as pensé…  I… told ya a little about my life before I met her, ouais?”, he said, and his sister nodded, her expression a carefully balanced mixture of worry and relief. “…Donc, j'avais un p'tit ami avant d'la rencontrer, mais… but I wasn’t exactly…  _faithful_ , or  _happy_ … J'me soûlais chaque nuit, j'me réveillait dans un autre lit que le mien ou ceci de Will de temps en temps… et j'ai jamais arrêté à allumer les feux pour me calmer…  Avant de Sam, l'équipe bleu avait un pyrotechnicien que souffrait aussi d'la pyromanie… il s'appelait Lander Yansson et il… nous étions des amis-”

“Et des amants?”, Annabelle asked, direct as ever, causing Gabriel to nod.

“J'lui aimait – pas de l'amour grand, mais c'était plus que d'amitié pour moi.  Pour lui… j'étais juste un distraction… un moyen pour passer le temps en brûlant rien… un ami, bien sûr, mais pas de plus.  …Alors, on parlait de notre futur, et en lui parlant, il semblait que mon futur était plus belle que j'ai pensé avant.  En lui parlant, j’m'ai toujours senti que j'pourrais être  _guéri_ de cette maladie infernale… mais une nuit, il a mis au feu quelques choses et après s'a saoulé profondément… il a tout oublié, même le feu qu'il a allumé, et… il mourrait dans l'inferno suivant…” Annabelle looked appropriately shocked, and Gabriel found, to his surprise, that tears streaked down his cheeks – but for once it felt like a _liberation_ to talk about Lander.  Every tear made his sorrow  _lessen_ instead of deepen as it usually was the case, prompting him to continue: “Mon équipe m'a pas fait confiance après ça – et j'ai commencé à penser que j'étais condamné à vivre seul, sans être aimé, sans avoir aucune chance de plus… mais quand j'me sentais que tout était foiré et qu'il n'y avait plus d'espoir pour moi…”

“Then Samantha came on the BLU team, right?”, his sister said, and Gabriel nodded, smiling again.

“It only took  _one_ look, just  _one_ look, and  _everything_ I thought I knew was thrown to the ground.  She was lively, she was warm, she was  _interested_ … back then, it was a surprise to me that she did that to me, but now? Now, it’s a surprise that we both managed to keep off each other for well-on a month.”  Annabelle rolled her eyes and tapped her watch somewhat apologetically.

“Well, I’m afraid I’ll have to beat a strategic and hasty retreat now, frèrot, avant que t'me dis des choses que je veux jamais savoir… Good night, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Two thirty.”, Gabriel repeated, both to show her he’d heard and remembered their agreement and to demonstrate how eager he was for the next day, when he’d meet her family, before adding: “Bonne nuit, et à demain, soeurette.”  He stood leaned against the doorframe until her tail lights had disappeared around the bend in the road, at which point he turned around and walked back in to join Sam on the sofa, to watch the flames of his fireplace and to bask in the heat of his girlfriend’s presence, which admittedly seemed to him warmer than even the merrily dancing flames would be.  Instantly when he walked in, Sam looked up, her gaze going from lightly amused to slightly worried in a heartbeat.

“Gabriel, did you cry?”, she asked, causing him to remember his previous cathartic moment with his sister and wave his hand airily in front of himself.

“C'est de rien, mon ange… nothin’ bad, just… I was honest to Belle about my past and… well…”  Like always, hearing him say the words 'my past’ got Sam to walk over to him and wrap her arms around him, holding him close to her smaller, slighter, but infinitely warm and supple form; and as always, whatever residual worries he still had fled like shadows in the bright light of the sun as she shone her light on him.

“Mon amour, if there’s anyone that deserves  _not_ to cry, it’s you.  …But it’s best that you’re honest to your sister and your father – don’t think I didn’t hear you talking about Billy and why you ended things with him before-”, Sam started, only to get cut off by Gabriel’s lips pressing onto her own.  Kissing her was an urgent necessity all of a sudden – a necessity that Sam seemed to wholeheartedly agree with, if her kissing him back just as happily was any indication at all.  But instead of heated from the very beginning, he kept their kiss light, the need in it not as demanding as usual but still very clearly present.  In the end, it was no surprise when Sam pulled away from him to breathe, looking at him through half-lidded eyes.  “…Gabriel, mon amour…”, she said softly, and he nodded, running his hands slowly over her back, up to her cheeks, running scarred thumbs over the skin on either side of her face.

“J'ai attendu d'être seul avec toi tout le jour.  J'ai dû avoir d'la patience tout l'après-midi et le soir, mais maintenant c'est fini et j'veux rien que te faire l'amour jusqu'au matin… lentement, et doucement…”, he admitted, giving her a heated look to show he was serious, and she smiled back, nodding.  However, to his surprise, she didn’t pull him along to the sofa, instead wrapping her arms a little more tightly around himself and kissing him slowly and needfully. His head spun from her proximity, even more so when she whispered in the dead quiet between them.

“…I’ve been waiting for us to be alone together as well, mon amour… and I know exactly where I want to lay with you…”  Instantly after, instead of allowing him to ask the question that instantly came to mind at her admission, she kissed him deeply, with the same slow but  _intense_ passion that had had his head spinning only seconds before, and he was very effectively sidetracked, especially when one of her hands tangled in his hair and pulled him in as close as she could manage.  When they had to break apart for a breath, he quickly panted out his question.

“D-donc, le fauteuil?”

“…too cramped…”, Sam said, shaking her head minutely before grinning and nudging her head at the carpet they stood on.

“…Ici?” No matter how much he wasn’t at all opposed to the suggestion, Gabriel found he couldn’t keep the larger part of his surprise out of his voice, even more so when Sam nodded and gave his shoulders a tentative push.  “Sur le tapis?  T'es sûre, mon ange?  Don’t you wanna be comfy-?”, he started, and Sam nodded, silencing him by placing a light but heated kiss on his lips before speaking in reply.

“Yes, I’m sure, Gabriel… let’s see us make  _that_ fire pale in comparison to the heat  _we’ll_ conjure up between us…”, she said, and suddenly Gabriel felt more than a little eager to proceed.  The flames in his fireplace were still going, and while kissing Sam had made them secondary to the fire that now raged in the core of his being, the thought of seeing his girlfriend naked in the glow of the fireplace was _heartstopping_.

“Oh, mon ange, que les flammes vont être jalouses de ton chaleur et beauté… okay…”  When she pushed gently on his shoulders a second time, he gladly sank to his knees, pulling her along and holding her close as they sat on their knees in front of the fireplace, kissing longingly and letting their hands wander.  The fire he felt in the center of his being didn’t rage and consume him as usual, he noticed faintly in between kisses: instead, it  _glowed_ within him, making every touch of Samantha’s fingertips over his bare skin – skin that he eagerly bared for her, lifting his sweater and shirt off himself happily as soon as he could – feel like it was melting away to allow her to reach inside of him and touch his very heart. “Mmnnn, Sam… get that damn sweater off-”, he started, his voice impatient to a fault, and Sam chuckled softly as she complied; his hands followed the hem of the T-shirt she wore underneath, following her curves and causing her to blush wildly the very second she had the sweater pulled off her.  “Ah, mon ange, j'veux jamais te laisser… j'veux juste t'emporter à notre paradis à nous-”

“Gabriel, parle moins et-  _mmmh…_ ” He couldn’t help it: as usually when she spoke in heated French, he instantly had to make her moan and allow him to answer the pleasure it gave him with an equal and surpassing amount dealt to her.

“J'veux te faire perdre toi-même ce nuit – j'veux te faire perdre toi-même juste ici, et après partout dans ce maison –  _notre_ maison, Sammy…”  Heated as the thought was, he had to allow himself a split second of time to fully and properly appreciate the warmth and the sense of belonging in that notion: that his house no longer was just his, that he would share it with the woman of his dreams just like he shared all the rest of his possessions and himself with her. Sam seemed to appreciate the tenderness of the moment as well, for she nuzzled his shoulder lightly and kissed it with a reverence that was enough to make Gabriel redouble his effort to try for soft, slow, sweet enjoyment, and he testamented that change of their usual fiery passion by only lightly nipping at the skin of her neck.  “Oh, Samantha, j'veux que toi et moi soyons proche toute la nuit… J'veux que 'ci soit le plus éloigné que nous soyons ce soir.  Non, j'veux bien que ceci soit le plus éloigné que nous soyons  _d'nos vies_.” Sam’s answer was a gentle but impossible-to-misinterpret shudder and a soft tug on his hair to get him to leave off the sensitive skin of her neck in favor of another needful, slow, indulgent kiss, pressing her entire body against his and setting his mind ablaze with a need that was just as urgent and sharp as always but not as  _demanding_ and  _explosive_. Instead, when he let his hands wander from her lower back to her bra to very deliberately undo the clasps and remove it from her body, he felt like his desire for her was not like a raging inferno for once but instead more resembled the hearthfire going next to them: just as warm and just as all-consuming, but subdued and focused on warmth rather than wild and greedy.

“Oh,  _Gabriel, mon amour…_ ”, Sam sighed when her lover kissed her cheek and then nipped her earlobe – the sound of her voice alone, reverent and breathless, made Gabriel grin at her warmly, taking a little bit of distance from her but still keeping them as close together as he could manage.

“J'sais, ah oui, je sais… mon âme, j'vais te faire l'amour comme nous avons tout le temps nécessaire, comme plus rien ne compte…”  Slowly, he pushed her down onto the rug, looking her over for a second before kissing her softly, deepening their kiss only when he could feel her hands move over his back to his shoulders tantalizingly slowly, her fingertips feeling like the skin they passed over was ignited instantly.  Normally, he’d be ravenously kissing her by that point, Gabriel mused in a detached corner of his mind: but he much preferred this slow, sweet, heated but  _heavenly_ way of appreciating his girlfriend, especially when she lightly moaned his name as he started kissing down her neck again, this time not stopping and kissing on over her shoulder and her clavicle to her chest, lightly nipping at the creamy and admittedly flawless skin of her breasts and only mildly teasing her nipples with his tongue and his lips, drawing the lightest and most alluring kinds of gasps from her.

“Oh god, Gabriel… d-don’t stop, this feels –  _oh_ , this feels  _so amazing, mon amour…_  Mmm, I want to return the favour later-”

“You can, but you don’t gotta…  Il suffit de voir que tu m'apprécie de ce genre, ça c'est toute la faveur dont j'ai besoin de toi.”

“Oh, I do enjoy you…  _mmm, yesss…_ ” Gabriel moved his kisses down her body to her stomach, gaining even more gasps and some delightful shivers from the woman he loved so dearly, and that made him move all the more deliberately: as he kissed her stomach, slowly but surely inching his kisses lower, he unbuttoned her jeans and then slowly pushed them and her panties down her legs, leaving her to kick them off once they were around her ankles, leaving her completely naked and splayed out on his rug for his eyes to rove over.  And the sight of her, in the glow of the fire, was _heartstoppingly perfect_. Her creamy skin looked like actual caramel in the fire’s light, her brown hair shone like bronze, her eyes looked like they’d been dusted with flecks of gold, and her curves now looked like they were  _begging_ for his hands to come and explore her even more, something he fully intended to do – until Sam sat up and they kissed, and Gabriel found them rolling over and  _her_ sitting over  _him_ to do just what he’d done minutes ago: kissing him lightly, then deeply and reverently, as if it was the last time she’d ever taste him – his hands slowly danced across her back again, this time dipping down to her perfect behind as well to give it a few light and encouraging squeezes – by that time, she was already kissing down his chest, giving his nipples a few lightly teasing kisses as well that had  _his_ breathing halt in his throat, and then moving on to his stomach while her hands set to work on liberating him from the confines of his admittedly uncomfortably constricting pants and underwear.  However, contrary to him, she didn’t stop her kisses, migrating them to his erection as soon as it was freed from the confines of his clothing, causing him to gasp sharply.

“ _Ahh_ , m-mon ange,  _ouaiiiis…_  Oh Sammy, you’re too fuckin’ perfect…”  When she allowed her tongue to very lightly and slowly pave a wet trail from the base of his member to the very tip, he groaned.  “ _Mon ange_ … J-j'veux bien… oh god, I need you so much, b-but we… I don’t wanna just fuck ya, I wanna  _make love to you_ , slowly and tenderly and  _perfectly_ … j'veux te montrer que la seule chose dont j'ai besoin, c'est toi…”

“I know…”, Sam whispered, having finally pushed his pants down to his ankles, allowing him to kick them off the rest of the way while she kissed back up to him, straddling him now but not yet pressing down around him just yet.  Instead, she kissed his neck and then up to his ear, where she breathed out her answer to his intentions: “I want that, too… to just… ahh, to just bring you a  _slow_ and  _perfect_ pleasure… T-to last for  _hours_ on nothing but your fingertips and your lips and the feeling of you  _taking possession of me_ …” It was that latter statement that made Gabriel wrap his arms around her and shift them so they were laying side by side, allowing him to properly run his hands over her body.  Sam’s almost exultant moan had his heart swell, even more so when she pressed herself right against his hands eagerly with a look that clearly told him how much she loved his caresses.  One of her legs wrapped around his, pulling him closer from the waist down and making the ache at the heart of his being intensify, but he kept a firm grip on himself and merely moaned out softly, his lips right beside her ear, every exhale making his girlfriend shudder in his arms a little.

“Ahh, oui…  Sammy, you are drivin’ me  _so crazy_ right now…  J'veux t'voir te perdre-”

“Oh, Gabriel, p-please, yes…”, Sam admitted, allowing him to gently lay on top of her again, a movement that also happened to end him up embedding himself inside of her.  “ _Oh, mon amour-_ ”

“I know… oh Sam, I know, j'le sens aussi, j'te sens si bien, c'est merveilleux… t'es merveilleuse…”, he muttered, shallowly rolling his hips into hers, taking it extremely slow.  For once, the last thing on his mind was to go quickly: instead, he wanted to draw out the pleasure, cultivate it, make it last – he wanted their passion to be less like the roaring, all-consuming inferno it usually was and more like the hearthfire that was lighting their unison as they proceeded.  From the sounds his beautiful girlfriend was making at his slow, soft movements, he was very successful.

“Mmmmh, mon  _âme_ , y-you’re making me feel  _so good right now…_  Oh, Gabriel,  _Gabriel_ , je t'aime tant, je t'aime tout…”, she muttered in the quiet, her words barely audible over the soft crackle of the fire next to them, but Gabriel could hear them as if she’d spoken them right into his ear.  It got him to move just a little faster though he still remained focused on the pleasure she displayed rather than the pleasure every slightly faster movement brought  _him_. The sight of her below him, shivering ever so lightly and looking at him with desire and deep love in her gaze, was enough to make him redouble his efforts to take it slowly.

“Oh  _god_ , Sammy, j'veux me perdre avec toi tellement, c'est du péché… I-it’s so  _hard_ not to just…  _let go_ and  _take ya so fast and hard…_ ”, he admitted, to which Sam answered with a groan and a very unsubtle upwards roll of her hips, right into his next thrust, making it a  _lot_ deeper than he’d intended.  “ _Oh, Dieu me garde,_ t'es mon paradis-”

“G-gabriel, don’t hold it  _all_ back… n-not fast and hard, maybe, but  _oh dear god…_ d-don’t overthink… d-do what feels  _riiiight_ -  _ah yes!_ ” Her words made nothing but sense, and he tentatively rocked his hips into her a little harder, making his girlfriend cry out softly. Throwing careful deliberation out the window, he instead focused on the infinitely more important joy of their unison: every slightest movement of either of them felt like it sparked more flames between them, and when he looked her over again what felt like hours later, his eyes roving her slightly sweaty body and her dusky curves, he felt more alive and aflame with the most tender kind of need than he’d ever felt before.  It was burning within him, right on the razor-thin edge between flaring into a blinding heat the likes of which would put every previous night they’d shared to shame or blossoming into pure tenderness – and beneath the surface, there was a tension unlike the usual kind of aching in his loins that was a sure sign of how close to release he was.  He knew he wouldn’t last but he still looked to the woman beneath him, breathlessly moaning for her in a superfluous attempt to entice her over the edge with him.

“M-mon ange, oh,  _Samantha, j'peux plus-”_

“M-moi _non plus… Ah Gabriel, my love… oh, oh yes, yes… d-don’t stop, oh don’t stop, mmmmh…_ ” Just like that, with a touch of her hand on his shoulder and a soft, shuddering breath, they both unwound simultaneously, their coming together tender and soft and yet burning hotter than the hearthfire that was now slowly dwindling.  It took Gabriel surprisingly little time to wind down again, showing more than anything else that their lovemaking had indeed been subdued – and when he looked down at Sam, finding her smiling at him lovingly, he found a new energy take hold of him.

“…Donc, puis-je t'emmener à mon lit, mon ange?  Oh shit, I mean  _notre_ lit. Everything inside this house, from the rug ya look so stunning on to the last candle and match in my nightstand, is  _yours_ along with me.”  He got up off Sam, looking at her tenderly as she got up and instantly pulling her into his naked body for a light but clearly longing kiss, after which he repeated the sentiment with a soft, reverent voice: “…C'mon, let’s go to  _our_ bed now, mon ange, j'vais dormir si bien avec toi près d'moi dans notre propre lit, dans notre propre maison.”

“Mmm, me too, mon amour.  …Alors, emmène-moi, mon chéri, j'me confie à tes soins et ton amour.”, she said lightly, causing his heart to skip a beat as he gently pulled her along to the hallway, not bothering picking up his clothes or underwear.  All he needed – all he’d ever need – was the woman that was now eagerly following him up the stairs to the bed that had never been more inviting to him.


	36. It's getting stronger and stronger

“…Wow, your dad lives all the way back here?”, Sam asked as Gabriel drove through the lane, nothing but trees and snow-covered landscape on either side with the occasional house dotted in between clusters of trees grouped tightly together.  “Must be  _lovely_ for him to go shopping, that has to be an hour’s drive from  _anywhere_ …”

“Fifty minutes, and he likes the drive, says it calms him and keeps him on his toes.”, Annabelle commented from the front passenger seat before pointing down a small road that led to a distant house.  “A droite ici, Gabri’.”  As her boyfriend turned, his sister gave Sam a soft, warm smile.  “Papa used to live in Regina, which isn’t as big a city as Montreal, but he didn’t like having to live in such a crowded place, so when he moved, he chose a more remote home.  His neighbors are nice people, too, they make the half-mile walk twice a week to see if they can help him maintain the house, he  _is_ getting a little older after all.”

“Ah, j'sais…”, Gabriel said a little mournfully – considering that he had confessed, multiple times even, that the fact that he’d missed his father’s retirement stung, it was little to no surprise that he didn’t like his father’s age brought up.  However, just when she meant to speak up soothingly, Annabelle beat her to it, her words soft and her smile apparent even if Sam couldn’t see her face.

“…But he’s by no means written off – il y a encore beaucoup d'feu dans son âme.  You should hear him rant about politics at times, he never liked the right-wingers-”

“Personne les apprécie.”, Gabriel interrupted, his voice already much lighter, and he even hummed along with the radio softly as Annabelle continued her previous explanation.

“…But dad’s little house in the woods is a  _dream_ for Lisette et David, they love playing in the yard, chasing after the chickens… et papa lui a construit une cabane perchée.”  She laughed lightly, turning to her brother and asking a question that had Samantha suddenly listening intently as well.  “T'souviens encore notre propre cabane perchée, Gabriel?”

“Oh, j'peux jamais l'oublier, Belle, t'sais bien… oh man, how could I ever forget that?  All those happy hours we spent reenacting all the fancy stories you had to read at school, and playin’ knights an’ dragons-”

“Gabriel was  _always_ the dragon, he  _never_ let anyone else stomp around roaring and flapping their tablecloth ‘wings’…”, Annabelle said, gently winking at Gabriel before adding: “J'me souviens encore, Gabri’, que t'as fait peur à notre pauvre voisinette Mercy en jouant, quand t'as rugi, parce qu'elle pensait que t'étais un  _vrai_ dragon…” Sam chuckled, which seemed to promote a shy blush from her boyfriend as he answered.

“…Yeah, well, she  _ran out of her house an’ bit me_. I still got a scar from her teeth on my arm, even!”, he said, and Annabelle now laughed in earnest, as did Sam, unable to help herself. The mental image of a five-year-old Gabriel being bitten by another five-year-old with an old tablecloth draped over his arms was endearing and funny.  Funny enough, apparently, to get her boyfriend to chuckle as well and add to the picture in her mind’s eye.

“Oh, Sammy, ya should’ve seen me play… we had this bright red tablecloth that clashed  _horribly_ with my hair, which was nearly white back then, j'étais assez pâle… an’ mama let me use her nailpolish so I had  _fiery red claws_ too… and I could roar like a real dragon.  Unfortunately.  J'ai rugi quand elle m'attaquait aussi, mais de douleur.  …I even still remember that dad was halfway through his beauty sleep, 'cause he came stormin’ outside wearin’ his indoors shirt looking like he’d come back from the dead, and then someone yelled 'oh non, un dragon vieux et chagriné!’ and dad started yelling at everyone there that he’d have a long talk to their parents about their misbehaving… ahh, les souvenirs de bonheur…”, the tall pyro sighed, turning his thoughts back to the road just as they drove past a fence and towards a small but quaint home situated right at the edge of the woods. “Ah, on y est!”, he said with a broad grin, looking like he was wishing he could slow down time to properly absorb the moment, something Sam wholeheartedly understood since she’d felt the same the first time she’d seen Damien’s new home.  Looking at the house, Sam saw Gabriel’s father already standing near his front door, appropriately duffeled up in a thick overcoat and wearing a warm hat. Also, behind them, Annabelle’s husband, who was driving her car, finally caught up to them again, his car turning onto the driveway leading to Marc Dantan’s home just as Gabriel cut the engine of their rental car.  He only paused to open the passenger door for her and helping her get out, which was something she was very thankful for considering how slippery the roads had looked and how thick the snow lay beside their car.  “Papa, que c'est bien de t'revoir aujourd'hui!”, he admitted, giving the man a short but infinitely warm hug that was returned with the same broad smile before Marc Dantan answered.

“Tu sais que ça me rend heureux, Gabriel… ah, Belle, t'as déjà emmené tes deux petits?”, he said, and Sam looked behind her just in time to see two small blurs run up to her boyfriend’s father and instantly tackle him into a more child-like but no less heart-warming version of Gabriel’s previous hug, prompting the man to laugh and Gabriel to look at the two children fondly.  “P'tite Lisette, que t'as grandi – si tu n'arrêtes pas, t'va être aussi grande que ton oncle!”, he said, and it was then that the two children turned their gaze on Gabriel, looking slowly up and then at their mother, clearly in awe of his stature and his very presence.  When Annabelle nodded and motioned for the two children to do whatever they meant to do, Sam had to genuinely bite her lip in order to keep from laughing softly as they clearly felt apprehensive about approaching their uncle, due in no small part to his being at least twice as tall as both of them..

“I-it’s very nice to meet you, uncle Gabriel…”, the boy said – he looked about ten years old, which was unsurprising considering the fact that Sam had overheard Annabelle tell Gabriel that she’d been expecting when he’d left, and he looked like a perfect cross between his fair-haired, fair-skinned mother and his kind-eyed and admittedly handsome father with his green eyes and light brown, messy hair. However, when he offered Gabriel his hand, the tall pyro shook his head and crouched down so he was more or less level with the boy.

“It’s very nice to meet you to, David, and don’t be shy, okay?  You wanna give me a hug, you’re gettin’ a-  _oof_!” Gabriel’s words were cut off by the boy, as well as his younger sister, tackling him both into a hug that nearly offset his balance and sent her boyfriend toppling to the ground, Sam mused.  A split second later, he laughed loudly and patted the children on their shoulders.  “Vous êtes ces petits coquins, vous deux … heh, je l'aime.P'tit David et p'tite Lisette, ça me rends heureux de te voir enfin.”

“Nous aussi oncle Gabriel, chuis jeureuse!”, the little girl loudly proclaimed, causing the adults to laugh loudly and Louis Jordan to finally speak up.

“David, Lisette, come on, let uncle Gabriel get up so he can shake dad’s hand too.  …Pleasure to see you again, Gabriel.”, he said while offering his hand, which Gabriel took without any hesitation, grinning kindly at the man.

“And you, Louis.  Can ya believe I missed talkin’ to you a li'l bit too?”, Gabriel admitted, and the man chuckled.

“Probably not as much as you missed ma Belle, but that I can completely understand.  And you must be miss Tennant-”

“Samantha.”, she offered, intending to offer her hand as well but instead being pulled in for a brief hug accompanied by three faint kisses on her cheeks.

“Louis Jordan, but since you’re basically Gabriel’s wife if I can believe what Annabelle has told me…”, he joked, earning a huff from his wife and a questioning look of Gabriel directed more at his sister than at the man that now winked at Sam with a warm smile before adding: “…you can call me Louis.  And I think you’ve already met David and Lisette-”  It was as if the words had been what the two children had been waiting for: instantly, they tackled Sam in two warm and surprisingly tight hugs.

“Chuis très jeureuse!”, Lisette cooed before tacking on an addition with a soft blush: “…Tante Samantha.”  David was more subdued but no less happy, she noticed.

“Bonjour, tante Samantha, it’s very nice to meet you.”

“Je suis très heureuse aussi, Lisette, and it’s wonderful to meet you too, David.  You’re both  _very strong_ , I think you do a lot of sports, don’t you?”, she said jokingly, and both children laughed, at which point Gabriel took over from her effortlessly.

“Oui, they nearly wrestled me to the ground, that’s a feat right there. …Donc, on va à l'interieur, ça fait froid dehors…”, he suggested, and the family gathering migrated to the house, trooping inside duly, Gabriel and Sam bringing up the rear.  Sam could feel Gabriel’s squeeze of her hand, prompting her to look at him and see an expression of pure happiness on his face as he looked around in the hallway.  More specifically, she guessed, to the picture that hung over Marc Dantan’s hallway cupboard, displaying him and Annabelle.  It was clear that the picture had been taken after the death of Gabriel’s mother, because he didn’t look nearly as well-groomed as he’d looked in the picture he’d shown her, and it already showed the slump in his shoulders that was the hallmark sign of his grief, but the fact that the picture hung there, and the fact that the photo frame looked extremely dusty at the top which showed that it had hung there a  _very_ long time already, were enough to show how cherished Gabriel was by his family.  “…J'avais jamais pensé qu'il allait se passer comme ci…”, he admitted, sighing happily, and Sam gently entwined their fingers, looking him in the eye tenderly.

“Why do things happen the way they do?  …Your little nephew and niece are sweet children, and your brother-in-law is a charming man.  I  _love_ your family, Gabriel, mon amour.”, she said superfluously, though his next words still managed to surprise her.

“Quand les petits t'appelent 'tante Samantha’… j'pensais que mon coeur explodait.  C'était  _trop parfait_. Je veux  _jamais_ te perdre, mon ange.”, he admitted, pulling her against him and raking his free hand through her hair slowly, causing her to sigh happily and run her thumb slowly in circles over the back of his hand.

“Gabriel, mon âme, moi non plus.  I don’t want to lose you either.  And seeing you laugh with those two little ones was…  _heart-warming_. You’re great with children.  …Oh, come here, you  _wonderful man_ …”, she said, bringing her own free hand up to the back of Gabriel’s head, pulling him in for a light but lengthy kiss that made her head spin with more than just the usual need for her lover any kiss they shared inspired.  This time, it made her mind reel from the overflow of emotions she felt, amplifying the sheer overwhelming love and contentment meeting her boyfriend’s family and being accepted in their midst without even a single reservation brought.

“Ah, Sammy, t'es mon ange… t'es mon rêve, mon  _âme_ …”, Gabriel admitted in a soft, reverent whisper in between that kiss and the next, which was just as light and lengthy as the previous one but now seemed all the more enticing, and she gladly let her eyes slowly close so she could enjoy the feel of Gabriel’s hand gently stroking through her hair and the sensation of his lips pressed to hers almost teasingly lightly but still as immoveable as though glued to her own. When they heard two barely repressed snickers behind them, however, they let go of each other and looked to see David and Lisette stand in the doorway, laughing loudly into their hands.

“You were kissing!”, David said somewhat accusingly, though still with a broad grin, and Lisette added to that sentiment.

“Oncle Gabriel et tante Samantha avez câliné!  J'ai vu!  J'ai vuuuuu! Maintenant ils vont avoir des bébés!”

“Mais non, ils vont pas avoir des bébés, il faut qu'ils font plus que juste donner un bisou…”, David corrected his sister, and Gabriel snorted.

“Don’t spoil your li'l sister, let her think she’s getting a li'l cousin…”

“Gabriel, we can’t let them think they’re getting a little cousin to run around and play with, then they’ll be disappointed when that isn’t the case!”, Sam said, rolling her eyes and getting Gabriel, with a more-than-theatrical sigh, to nod and concede her point before he crouched down again so he wasn’t towering over his niece anymore, allowing him to speak to her softly.

“Mais dis-moi, t'as jamais vu ton papa donner un p'tit bise à ta maman, Lisette?”, he asked, and when the little girl shook her head, he grinned.  “Donc, et après que t'as vu, ta maman n'as pas eu un bébe, vrai?”, he continued, to which she nodded.  “Alors, ton oncle Gabriel et ta tante Samantha, vont ils avoir un bébé maintenant parce qu'ils ont donné un bisou l'un à l'autre?”, he questioned – and whether to defy his expectations or out of genuine glee, Sam didn’t know, but the little girl nearly squealed as she nodded and loudly proclaimed her previous answer.

“Maman, papa, papy, oncle Gabriel et tante Samantha avez câliné et maintenant ils vont avoir des bébééééééééés!”  Gabriel’s soft groan was filled to the brim with light amusement, Sam found, and he squeezed her hand as they walked on to join the others in the living room, amidst amused laughter and exclamations about the fact they’d been caught kissing by the two children.

 

“…Donc, Samantha, dis-moi…”, Marc Dantan started as they sat back in the living room after an admittedly great dinner, causing Gabriel to look away from his father’s bookcase and focus back on the conversation he’d somewhat wearily opted out of in favor of dozing a little and basking in the warmth of being surrounded by family.  His father seemed to be contemplating something half-serious and half-amusing, if the soft smile on his features was any indication.  When he continued, Gabriel couldn’t help but grin as well.  “…t'es une femme bien forte, mais… même pour une telle femme votre boulot n'est pas facile.  P-pourquoi as-tu choisi une vie de guerrier même que Gabriel?”  Instantly, Gabriel tensed just a little: the question was so very closely related to topics that were still painful to Sam, naturally, so he could only hope that the question didn’t upset her, but to his surprise she nodded and even managed a soft, albeit rueful, smile.

“…Well, it’s a long story… ça ne se dit pas dans quelques mots-”

“Ah, mais on a d'la temps pour ton histoire, ma chère.  J'veux le savoir… j'veux te faire connaissance afin de comprendre quoi est-ce qu'il s'est passé entre Gabriel et toi.  J'ai jamais parlé beaucoup avec mon fils mais je l'ai toujours connu mieux qu'il pensait, et il était très clair dans ses préférences… donc, dis-moi, pourquoi as-tu accepté ce boulot que tu faites, ce boulot qui t'a introduite à lui?”

“Papa, si elle n'en veut pas parler-”, Annabelle started, but Sam shook her head and spoke.

“Donc, pour le comprendre parfaitement, il faut que je dis au premier un petit peu de mon histoire de famille.  J'suis la moyenne, j'ai un frère qui a trente-et-un ans et j'avais un frère qui avait dix-sept ans-”

“Avait?”, Marc Dantan asked, and Sam nodded gravely and slowly.

“Oui, il avait dix-sept ans.  …It avait une dépression et il… s'a suicidé au deuxième avril.”  Silence reigned in the living room, Gabriel found, his father debating whether or not to apologise and ask Sam to forget he even asked while Annabelle seemed to hesitate between telling her father off and telling Sam that she didn’t need to tell them about it if she didn’t want to – but his girlfriend continued after a few seconds: “…Il s'a mis en feu, dans la maison de nos parents.  J'arrivais là et j'ai encore essayée de lui sauver mais j'étais brûlée gravement.  Nos parents étaient… ma mère n'était pas… oh  _damn_ , I don’t know how to say it in French properly!”, Sam said, and in a bout of  _brilliant_ understanding, Gabriel found his father looking at her and speaking in strained but encouraging English.

“So say eet in Eenglish, ma chère, I will understand – and eef I do not, Gabri’ ou Belle traduira.”  Gabriel could  _see_ relief washing over his girlfriend like a breeze of fresh air, and he moved to sit next to her again, holding her hand as she spoke.

“…My mother was never kind to me or Michael, she… frequently hit him and she dismissed his attempts at doing better at school just like she dismissed my career as a fireworks-maker.  S-so when Michael killed himself and I got burnt trying to save him, she outright  _refused_ to believe that he’d been suffering from a depression and she blamed  _me_. She tried to get me convicted for manslaughter-”

“C'est pas vrai!”, Marc burst out, and Gabriel nodded, taking over from his girlfriend for a second.

“Oui, c'est vrai.  J'te dis, papa, quand j'rencontres la mère de mon ange, j'lui dis quelques choses au sujet d'être bon parent…”

“Oh no, don’t, Gabriel, mon amour… my mom… don’t  _waste_ your energy on her…”, Sam said softly, shaking her head, but Gabriel found the indignant rage in his heart burn just a little brighter at the knowledge that Sam still loved her mother while the woman had done all she seemingly could to make her daughter’s life a living hell.

“J'le fera, mon ange, personne ne mérite ce qu'elle t'a fait.  …But anyway, go on…”, he said, motioning for his father and his sister, who now both looked at Sam in shock and deepest sympathy.

“…Okay, so my parents tried to have me put in jail – or at the very least, my  _mother_ tried to, my father’s just being  _yelled over_ by her.  …When that didn’t work out, my mother tried to have me committed for pyromania, which I  _do not_ have, just to be clear.  I love fireworks, but not to the point of obsession, and I wouldn’t light anything on fire, especially not after what happened to Michael.  …My older brother, Damien, took me under his wing: he had dad transfer my parents’ medical proxy over to him and had me transferred to New York, from where he pulled strings and had me defended in English court.  He… won the case, so my parents sold the rest of their estate, changed their name, packed up their belongings and moved from England to Belgium, across the Channel.”  Again, a shocked silence reigned, one that Gabriel could completely comprehend.  When Sam had told him the first time that her parents had first tried to have her incarcerated and then committed and that they, when those two attempts had both failed, had then  _moved as far away from her as they could…_ “…Anyway, I was very badly burned, and mentally I wasn’t in an altogether great state as well-”

“Yes, well, having a sibling commit suicide in such a  _brutally gruesome_ way will do that to a person, no matter how strong they are.”, Annabelle said stiffly – Gabriel resolved to give his sister the biggest, warmest hug he could manage afterwards, because Sam’s shoulders seemed a little less tense after her words than before them, and her voice was a little less downtrodden when she spoke on.

“-and Damien started pulling strings again to give me some job prospects for after I awoke from my chemically induced coma, which turned out to be a month after I was transferred.  I was… well, I looked like a wreck.  When I joined BLU, I was covered from head to toe in bandages to cover up the still-healing skin grafts they’d given me, I had little to no hair, I had to use a catheter to allow my nethers to heal…”  The others winced at the mention of the catheter, and even Gabriel did so.  He’d known, of course, but still the thought of it made shoots of pain stab his own groin at the mere notion.  “…I looked like an androgynous being – my… well, there had been too much damage.  When I woke up and I gave my brother a hug, and I could press him a little too tightly against myself…  Ahem, but all of that was a little later.  I woke up from the coma and my brother had to tell me that our youngest brother was dead, that I’d been badly burnt and that I’d need extensive surgery to repair what I’d lost… I’d been a smoker before it happened but afterwards I kicked the habit and Damien started up.  He smelled of cigarette smoke every single day while he was with me.  His employer, Neoplast, was fortunately very understanding and they allowed him time to take care of me.  Time that he used to contact my former employer, Katchan Fire Inc-”

“Oh, c'est c'entreprise grande qui organise et crée les shows extraordinaires de feu d'artifice!”, Gabriel’s father said, prompting the RED pyro to nod but remain quiet so Sam could finish her story.

“Yes, only Damien went straight to the source – he arranged a meeting with the CEO of Katchan Fire, Lucian Parnell, and detailed to him everything that had happened to me – when the man heard how I’d lost my job, Damien told me later, he instantly called his secretary on the telecom and had her schedule a teleconference with Katchan Fire Britain.  And right after he’d done that, he told Damien that he’d just been hired by a company looking for a pyrotechnician for an  _unusual_ job that would demand someone top-of-the-game, and Damien promised to suggest the idea to me.  I… was a little desperate, not to mention it was the closest I’d been to a fireworks-related job in  _months_ , so I couldn’t put my signature on the dotted line fast enough.  After a week’s worth of discussions with the hospital, with BLU, with Katchan Fire, with  _me and Damien_ … I was allowed to leave the hospital to start with the company.  I’d  _known_ what the job entailed, but I was a little desperate for the, uh,  _escape_ it’d offer.  Anything was better than laying in that hospital bed brooding on how much I’d give for my brother to still be alive.  …Donc, ça est la raison pourquoi j'ai accepté ce boulot de pyrotechnicienne.”, Sam finished meekly, reaching for Gabriel’s hand at the same time as he reached for hers, a gesture that didn’t elude Marc Dantan or Annabelle.  Both of them sat in silence for a few seconds, and Sam had already sighed, ready to speak up, when Gabriel found his father cutting her off, his words making him _really_ want to get up off the sofa and hug the man for his flawless timing and understanding.

“…J'comprends parfaitement pourquoi toi et mon fils t'accordent aussi bien… t'avais tous les deux essayé d'échapper votre vie de misère, et vous vous avez trouvé l'un l'autre.  …Quand j'rencontrais Marylise-”  Instantly, Gabriel’s heart halted, and his expression had to be one of utter shock and pure attention, because Sam cast him a look of sympathy all of a sudden.  “-quand je l'a vu pour la première fois, j'avais juste failli de nouveau mon dernière année d'université.  Mes parents m'avaient dit que j'aurais juste  _une_ seconde chance, et j'avais le merdé.  Mais quand j'étais en train de me soûler pour l'oublier et pour oublier ce sentiment d'avoir tout perdu… j'la vois, assise à côté d'moi, ravissante et avec l'air d'une fleur blessée.  Elle était bien saoulée déjà et elle m'disait, quand j'l'avais demandé pourquoi elle buvait aussitant que moi, qu'elle s'a séparé de son p'tit ami parce qu'il veut pas se lier.  J'ai dit, un peu stupidement, 'viens avec moi, chérie, j'va te jamais laisser, t'es si belle…’… et j’m'suis réveillé  à côté d'elle.  …Et bien, quand-même, moi et elle, nous nous sont séparés après presque quinze ans d'mariage et après presque vingt ans d'amour grand…”, he admitted shyly, and Sam reacted unthinkingly, her words making Gabriel’s heart leap up.

“Comme si je vais me séparer de Gabriel-”  Instantly, she blushed deeply, looking at his father and sister, but Gabriel didn’t allow her to soften the statement: grinning broadly, he nearly pulled her onto his lap to tenderly kiss her cheek and hold her close to him, giving his family of two a triumphant look.

“Vois, elle est une  _rêve_ , j'le jure… j’m'vais jamais séparer de toi non plus, mon ange. …Okay, donc, faut que nous rentrons chez moi… j'suis fatigué-”, Gabriel said somewhat transparently, though he only realized how transparent his excuse was when his father laughed lightly and shook his head.

“T'es pas du tout fatigué, Gabri’, mais j'vois bien que tu veux d'la solitude avec ta p'tite amie.”  Gabriel couldn’t help but blush shyly and cast a helpless look at his sister, who raised her hands defensively, clearly nonverbally telling him that she was not coming to his aid, and Sam laughed lightly, adding to his embarrassment.

“Monsieur Dantan, c'est bien rare que quelqu'un fait rougir Gabriel, nous devrons te rendre visite au moins chaque jour férier qu'on nous donne…”  Then, winking at Gabriel and rising from the sofa she’d been sitting on, still holding his hand, she spoke to both his father and sister: “We should be going anyway, no matter what reason Gabriel has – we’ll need to be well-rested for tomorrow’s celebrations, after all.  Gabriel can find your house now, he’s input the GPS coordinates into our rental car-”

“Et j'les ai noté aussi, pour le moment quand nous venons ici avec notre propre voiture.”, Gabriel said, and this time Sam was the one that mildly blushed, probably because of his mentioning their own car. Before anyone had the chance to react, however, he rose as well and gently stepped towards the door, his arm around Sam’s shoulders to usher her along.  “…On se voit demain à…?”

“A midi?  J'pense bien que Samantha veut aider Belle avec les preparations, n'est-ce pas?”, his father said, and Sam’s nod made any answer superfluous except for the obvious confirmation.

“Donc, à midi.”  He embraced his sister first as they stood in the hallway, while his father opened the door: then, when Marc Dantan stepped back to allow them to pass, Gabriel gave him a warm and fond hug, his coat already half on.  Beside him, Sam hugged his sister and father each in turn as well and even spoke a soft 'à demain, papa’ at his father that had the older man smile so fondly that Gabriel once again figured it was like Sam was made for him to share his life with.  Still, rather than muse on it, he walked her to their car, and as they drove off, his attention was half focused on waving at his father and half on avoiding slipping on the icy road leading to the main road.  Then, however, as they were back onto a driveway that didn’t require his constant and careful attention, he looked at his girlfriend to find her smiling.  “…T'as bien aimé voir la maison d'mon père, non?”, he asked, and she nodded, prompting him to sigh and nod as well.  “Moi aussi.  Sa nouvelle maison est bien chouette… ça s'accorde bien avec lui.  Mon père est un homme singulier, donc il mérite bien une maison singulière.  …But back there, what ya said…”

“Oh, don’t tease me with it, I… Grant and my team did that once before already-”

“Ya mean…?”, Gabriel said, his voice trailing away incredulously, and Sam filled in the blank with little to no hesitation.

“Back when we ha d the waterbattle, Grant was berating me on indulging you the night before, and I said to him 'haven’t you ever been young and in love’, to which  _he_ answered 'yes and it ended in divorce’ which got me to stupidly say 'like I’d ever divorce Gabriel’.  My team had a  _field day_ teasing me all afternoon with it.  Especially when I soaked you to distract you from Archie carrying the bucket off and you looked so  _bloody handsome_ with your hair plastered to your head and those swimshorts clinging to your legs… oh  _hell_ , I can’t think of that…”, she muttered, shaking her head, and Gabriel grinned lopsidedly as he spoke softly but heatedly to her.

“Oh non, pense-en, dis-moi tout que tu penses… toutes tes pensées et rêves de moi…”

“Gabriel, do you  _enjoy_ making me want to take the wheel and get several speeding tickets just to get us  _home before I start undressing you right here?_ ”, Sam groaned, and Gabriel laughed softly.

“I kinda do, ouais – mais t'es pas seule, mon ange, I hope it’s fuckin’  _dark_ out when we get home because if the neighborhood sees how damn  _hard_ I am just  _thinkin’_ of ya…”  He could  _feel_ Sam’s eyes flit over his form and grinned, pressing the pedal down just a little more, driving just upward of the speed limit, figuring one or even two speeding tickets would be a small price to pay for a few minutes more spent  _sating_ the fire roaring inside of him instead of  _stoking it higher_.

 

“…Okay, Gabri’, laisse-la maintenant – seriously, you should let her go-”

“Nuh-uh, j'dois pas la laisser, j'la garde ici, près d'moi.”, Gabriel reacted, his arms tightening just a little around Sam’s waist, gaining him loud giggles from his nephew and niece and a somewhat questioning look from his father, but Annabelle didn’t seem to be in the playful mood: placing one hand in her side, the other still menacingly holding the wooden spoon, and Sam quickly intervened before she’d actually hit him with it.

“Gabriel, mon amour-”  That, of course, gained  _her_ even  _louder_ giggles from the two children, but she smiled and turned to them.  “Est-ce que vous deux avez des problèmes quand j'appele votre oncle, qui j'aime tant, 'mon amour’, hm?”

“Oncle Gabriel est ton  _amoooouuuurrrr…_ ”, the little girl said teasingly, and the boy just snickered and spoke in perfect English.

“Uncle Gabriel looks  _frightening_  and it’s just  _silly_ that anyone calls him 'mon amour’.”

“Oh, but then you haven’t heard what  _he_ calls  _me_ …”, she tried, but the children laughed softly and nodded.

“Ouiiii on a entendu, il t'appele 'mon  _aaaaange_  de feu’…”, the little girl said loudly, dramatically emphasizing the one most important word in the pet name, grinning cheekily as she continued: “…et après il te donne un  _bisou gros_ , c'est parce qu'il te veut pas laisser-”

“C'est parce qu'oncle Gabriel et tante Samantha sont amoureux, juste comme ta maman et moi.”, Louis quickly saved her and Gabriel, though the taller pyro didn’t look like he minded the children’s childish teasing one bit.  In fact, he’d gotten a smug and utterly self-satisfied look on his face when Lisette had 'accused’ him of kissing Sam.  However, when Sam heard David’s quick and muted addition, she realized it was just as much to save them as to save Lisette from her older brother’s already very  _accurate_ knowledge on the subject.

“…c'est parce qu'oncle Gabriel et tante Samantha veulent faire  _plus_ que  _s'embrasser_ , j'pense…”  Nobody else showed any sign to have heard it, and Sam resolved to speak a word or two to Annabelle in the security of the kitchen about her son and how he could get in trouble with his quick tongue and very accurate guesses about her and Gabriel’s thoughts when they shared an innocent kiss in company.  Fortunately, Annabelle spoke up next in the relative quiet

“Now  _come on_ , Gabriel, don’t make me force you.  Let Sam go so we can start preparing dinner for everyone.”

“…Oh, okay, fine…”, Gabriel said, making his reluctance a little more over-the-top for the children’s sake, causing everyone else in the room to laugh, including Annabelle, though she was still casting her brother a look that said 'come on, Gabriel, behave a little’.  Sam got up from Gabriel’s lap – another thing that had the children laughing non-stop had been when she sat down next to Gabriel but her boyfriend instantly pulled her onto his knees, one of his arms instantly wrapping around her waist loosely.  “…Sammy, mon ange, t'me promets que j'vais pas t'manquer?”, he asked, winking at her and nudging his head minutely at the two children, to show he was actually teasing them by lavishing affection on her, and she rolled her eyes as she answered.

“I won’t have the chance to miss you, mon amour, j'vais cuisiner! Lisette, make sure your oncle Gabriel behaves just as well as your dad does – you’ll tell me  _everything_ about how he misbehaved when I get back, right?”, she said, and the little girl nodded after a few seconds, grinning broadly.

“Oncle Gabriel doit s'comporteeeeeeer bien ou j'dis tout at tante Samaaaaaantha!”, the little girl said in a sing-song voice, and Gabriel groaned but gave her a look of fond devotion before Annabelle motioned for her to go to the kitchen, probably wary of the fact that her brother could change his mind about letting her go again.  Once the kitchen door had shut behind them, Annabelle sighed and looked over the ingredients she’d already laid out on the kitchen counter.

“…I’m sorry about indulging him…”, Sam said meekly as she took the tightly packaged ham, checking it over and then looking in the kitchen cupboards for a large enough casserole to prepare it in. “…But it’s bloody hard  _not_ to indulge him, he’s like a fever in my blood.”

“Oh, it’s… I  _understand_ it’s hard to… leave off him.  It’s just so  _odd_ seeing Gabriel behave like a teenager.  Odd and endearing, of course.  Je vois bien qu'il se sent heureux autour de toi, Samantha.  …But I’m still glad that he let you go, and that he at least  _behaves only slightly touchy-feely_ with you around mes petits – I can explain a kiss and maybe a touch or two to Lisette without having to speak about things that a four-year-old shouldn’t yet know-”  That reminded Sam of Lisette’s older brother and his soft-spoken reaction to his father’s explanation: clearing her throat, she turned to Annabelle.

“Well, uh, David seems to be very  _knowledgeable_ about the subject, so…  Just now, when Louis said to Lisette that Gabriel gives me 'big kisses’ because we’re in love, David added his whispered two cents saying that we do that because we want to do  _more_ than just give each other a hug and a kiss – which of course isn’t a lie, but a ten-year-old shouldn’t really be catching on to that just yet.”  Annabelle rolled her eyes and sighed, melting butter in the casserole so they could start preparing the ham.

“David… well, his friends at school all have older brothers that apparently share their knowledge happily with their preteen siblings, and David absorbs it like a sponge.  You should hear what he asks me and Louis at the dinnertable sometimes – or, at least,  _used to_ ask, because he once used a very inappropriate word that Lisette of course found  _fantastique…_ that got him punished for a good week, and afterwards he promised not to use the 'bad’ words at the dinnertable anymore, but still… he asked Louis just last week if we really did something  _'that gross’_  to have him and Lisette.  Sometimes, though, in between all the crude remarks and language there’s genuine questions, like if sex hurts or if it’s true that girls  _bleed_ sometimes – that last one was particularly poignant, and he started kidnapping chocolate from our home to take to school out of sympathy for the one early-blooming girl in his class of  _primaire_ that complained of stomach aches.”  Annabelle laughed lightly before adding: “ _That_ earned him his first ever girlfriend, with whom he shared all of two kisses and three afternoons before he said 'girls are  _hard_ and I don’t  _get them_ ’ and broke it off with her again.”  Sam happily laughed along, shaking her head at the thought of David holding a girl’s hand and looking up at her – because girls tended to outgrow boys at that age – with a fond but confused look.

“Oh, that I can understand – when  _I_ was ten, I had a 'little friend’ that constantly invited me over to his house to get to kiss me without being teased by his mates.  But I said I didn’t like all the kissing and then he stopped inviting me altogether.  …Say, Annabelle…”, she asked, suddenly turning serious again as a question entered her mind.  The timing for it seemed more than opportune: with Gabriel out of earshot and the children happily entertained by the three men who were, by the sound of it, play-acting with them, she could ask her boyfriend’s older sister the one question that suddenly burned in her brain.  “…I… want to know about Gabriel’s mum a little bit more.  I mean, he told me how much she meant to him, and I  _know_ how much she  _still means_ to him, but… je veux savoir-”

“You want to know what she was like, right?”, she asked, and Sam nodded eagerly, prompting a sigh from the older woman.  “…Well, that’s not something that’s easily answered, I’m afraid, but I’ll tell it as I saw it.  Mama was… strong-willed.  A gentle, free spirit that wasn’t afraid to kick shins and cause a commotion if she thought it was necessary.  I say 'gentle’, but when someone dared show her disrespect, or if someone dared lay even a  _finger_ on us, or threaten to do so, she became fierce.  Especially towards Gabriel.  Mama and I, we were close – you sometimes hear it said that mother and daughter are closer than even the closest friends, and that was certainly true for us – but mama and Gabriel… oh, she would’ve done anything for him, and he for her.  He was  _devoted_ to her.  If anything went wrong and Gabriel took the blame, she never even raised her voice.  …When he grew up, it didn’t change at all. Gabriel and mama still were as close as ever before, even if she insisted that he call her by her first name instead of always saying 'mama’.  They frequently called, and Gabriel visited her as often as he could, even with the high demands of his studies at first and his job later.”

“That’s… nice.  That their relationship didn’t change, I mean.”, Sam admitted, and Annabelle nodded softly.

“Rien n'a changé entre eux.  Sure, mama was changed – she’d started seeing someone, a very nice man, Jack Lyonard, I still visit him from time to time – and Gabriel changed as well, becoming much more mature and focused on his career… but deep down, Gabriel was still that little boy that picked every flower by the side of the road to present to her.  It… mon frère…  Gabriel told you how mama died, n'est-ce pas?  The circumstances, I mean?”

“Yes, he took her out to a fancy dinner to celebrate his first promotion and she died of shellfish allergy.  He thinks it’s his fault because he’d invited her-”, Sam said, prompting a sigh from her boyfriend’s sister that was both mournful and somewhat apprehensive.

“…Gabri’… Gabriel was a very outgoing kid and teenager – always talking, always playing, always the center of attention.  He was handsome enough, and he was smart, and likeable.  Polite, well-groomed – our mama had this saying-”

“'Soigne toi-même et le monde suivra.’  Gabriel told it to me once.  It’s engrained in his heart.”, Sam admitted, motioning for Annabelle to continue, which she did with a rueful smile gracing her features.

“-well, anyway, it comes down to the fact that Gabriel used to be very different from the way he is now.  He’s still outgoing and the center of a lot of attention, I think, but mostly the  _wrong kind_ of attention.  He also used to be clean-shaven and with his hair slicked back, always wearing ridiculously tight-fitting jeans-”  Sam couldn’t help it: she snorted softly, shaking her head at the thought of Gabriel in tight-fitting jeans.

“Thank god he kicked  _that_ habit…”, she said, adding a second later with a warm smile: “And he’s perfectly well-groomed to me.  I don’t mind his goatee, or the fact that his hair looks like he’s barely escaped a hurricane.  I  _love_ him, scruffy hair and all.  Oh, and his tattoo, I love that too.  Your mother’s face looks so… you can  _feel_ the sorrow.”, she finished meekly, and Annabelle blinked.

“…Tattoo?” Suddenly, Sam turned to the woman standing on the opposite side of the kitchen counter, finding her looking horrified.

“Y-you didn’t know yet?  …oh my god… I…”

“He’s got a tattoo of mama’s face?  W-where? When did he-”

“On his left upper arm.  …He got it after her funeral, he told me.  He couldn’t bear the gathering and he left, to go bar-hopping and get more than a little drunk… and when he was wasted enough to not care about anything but the grief in his heart, he came across a tattoo parlor and he decided… wait, he said something like 'I decided since she was under my skin anyway, she might as well  _literally_ be under my skin’…”, Sam said, looking at Annabelle to see her expression of utter shock not soften even the slightest bit.  It spurred her on to speak further: “…Gabriel should really talk about this himself, b-but I can tell you one thing: he’s very… protective… of that tattoo.  Only a couple of people saw it, of which only two are still alive.  I saw it, and his previous two  _serious_ lovers did as well.  But they discovered it by accident, he’s told me, and to me, he  _showed_ it. That tattoo of your mother’s tear-stained face, it’s… it’s his reminder of the sorrow he’s kept feeling ever since your mother died of an allergy that Gabriel  _couldn’t have known about_ and  _couldn’t have stopped._  But lately, it’s become more than that, it’s also become the reminder of how low he went and how high he’s climbing back up. …Believe it or not, Gabriel is doing  _amazing_  right now.  He… he  _did_ tell you about the rest of it, right?  His pyromania, his drinking, his frequent casual liaisons?”

“In horrifyingly detailed terms, yes.”, Annabelle admitted, still looking and sounding shocked though now a hint of relief entered her tone as well.  That relief became all the more clear when she added: “And he did tell papa and I that he’s not doing that anymore due to you and how good you are to him.  …He’s got a tattoo of mama’s face, I… I thought I’d seen a glimpse of it once but he insisted I had to have imagined things-”

“Part of the reason why he doesn’t like to put it on display, except to those he trusts not to be disappointed in him, is because he believed himself to be indirectly or directly responsible for all of his grief.  Not the drinking and the sleeping around, that he  _knew_ was his choice, but the pyromania and the sorrow that lay at the basis of everything.  He’s blamed himself for so much over the years: first his mother’s death, then his pyromania and his running away from you, his ending up in prison, then _Lander’s_ death…” Sighing, Sam shook her head and turned her attention back to the ham they were cooking.  “…Phew, this turned out to be a heavy conversation…”, she muttered, and to her surprise Annabelle reacted in kind.

“…Okay, yes, that wasn’t my idea.  …So you like Gabriel the way he looks now?”, she asked, and Sam nodded, smiling softly.

“Oh, yes, I much prefer it to the way he used to look.  I… he has one picture of his adult self before it all started-”

“Oh, believe me, he probably was a pyromaniac long before mama’s death – did he tell you about the house we grew up in?  About how he used to spend hours in front of the fireplace whenever he felt troubled?  He used to childishly say that all his problems became fuel to the fire the longer he looked.”, Annabelle said with a soft sigh, to which Sam nodded.  Gabriel had been extremely open with her, to the point where he’d told her that little bit of information as well.

“…He’s told me about that, too, and I  _know_ that he didn’t become a pyromaniac overnight.  But all of that – his longing to see fire, the way he finds inner peace looking at it – all of that is  _fine_ by me.”

“Even with your youngest brother having done what he’s done?”, Annabelle asked, and Sam nodded.

“Even then.   _Especially_ then, I suppose I have to say.  Michael… whenever I think of Michael now, about the blaze he went out with, I… keep thinking Gabriel could’ve chosen the same way out, only he didn’t.  Gabriel is such a strong,  _strong_  man, Annabelle – he seems so weak, but he’s like a rock at the very heart of him.  Nobody else saw it but me and maybe one or two others. Lander saw it, that I  _know_ , and I think Grant, his team’s engineer, sees it too… and Billy, because no matter how frequently he cheated on the poor guy he kept on forgiving him, knowing that it wasn’t Gabriel’s intention to hurt him…  A-anyway, Gabriel is strong, because he could’ve ended it – but he didn’t.  He could’ve succumbed to the weight of his sorrow, both the grief that he couldn’t help and the grief he did himself just to drown out the rest of it… but he  _bore_ it. For  _ten long years_ , he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders… and all I want to do now is to applaud him for it.  I don’t blame Michael for being weak and for choosing an easy way out – because I know it wasn’t easy, not for him, not the way he asked me as I drove off again that Saturday afternoon if I loved him…  I do-don’t blame my brother for doing what he’s done, but I’m  _happy, so very happy,_ that I’ve got Gabriel.  I’m so overjoyed that  _he_ didn’t choose an easy way out.”  Surreptitiously, Sam moved to wipe the stray tears that had formed in the corner of her eye, but she found another, larger and more calloused, hand beat her to it while its twin pulled her backwards against Gabriel’s fluffy woolen sweater.

“J’t'aime aussi, mon ange, mon âme… ya see this, Annabelle?  One day, when we’re comin’ to visit you and papa, she’s gonna be misses Samantha Dantan- or no, wait, lemme rephrase that: one day, when we’re comin’ to visit you and papa, I am gonna be mister Gabriel Tennant and I’m gonna be  _so fuckin’ proud of it_. …And I thank every damn god an’ angel I know, startin’ and endin’ with notre chère mère, that I didn’t give in to mes désespoirs… wouldn’t have wanted to miss ya for the world, mon ange…” Spinning her around, Sam gladly kissed him back lightly but longingly when he pressed his lips to hers, after which she smiled and winked at him.

“…Came to check in on me and your sister, see if she wasn’t telling me embarrassing baby stories?”, she asked lightly, to which her lover answered with a soft chuckle.

“Came to see if you and Annabelle were done talkin’ about mom yet.  Don’t think I didn’t know you wanted to talk about her.  …And I’m glad ya did.  Belle’s right, I would’ve done anything for my mom-”

“T'as écouté à la porte comme si t'es petit de nouveau, Gabri’?”, Annabelle berated him gently, causing the tallest of the three of them to raise his hands and snort.

“J'ai jamais grandi, t'sais bien, Belle.  …Now, you ladies need a li'l expert help?  Nine years in a kitchen cookin’ for those connards on my team taught me a thing or two about food…”  Annabelle looked like she’d protest, but Sam was quick to nod and pull off her own apron to hand it to him.

“Of course you can help, the more the merrier!”  Seeing the way Gabriel looked overjoyed to be in the kitchen, Annabelle didn’t protest for longer than a heartbeat anymore, Sam was glad to see, and by the time they started stirring pots and picking out seasonings again, the two siblings and her were gladly and lightly talking about small things, a peace hanging in the air between them.  Their previous topics of conversation weren’t forgotten, but for now they were far from everyone’s mind again in favor of the light, almost casual ease with which they cooked.  Almost as if this wasn’t the first time but the millionth time, Sam mused with a broad, grateful and infinitely happy smile.


	37. With hope in your heart (Warm Holidays part 3)

“…Donc, Gabri’, t'restes ici ce nuit, j'espère?”  His father’s question caused Gabriel to grin and nod.

“J-j'pense pas qu'on a d'autre choix.  J'peux plus conduire comme ci, et Sammy peut plus conduire aussi-”  Instantly, Sam sat up a little straighter at the mention, her cheeks rosy and her eyes shining softly, showing she had indulged in the wine and the good company just as much as he had.  Next to Annabelle, who was half-asleep as well, David and Lisette lay curled up on the sofa, spooned together, the older boy holding his younger sister and holding the blanket over her somewhat awkwardly.

“…Oh, Gabriel, mon amour, if I was supposed to drive us back-”

“Non, I weel not ‘ear eet, Samantha, you and Gabri’ sleep 'ere, weeth zee rest of us.  Eet ees zee only tradition d'Noël que j'ai manqué ces dix années passées-”  Now Sam chuckled, Gabriel noticed: when she spoke, her voice soft and a little loftier due to how she’d clearly indulged in the wine as well, he found himself grasping her hand gently in his own.

“So more than having Gabriel opening gifts or him cooking for you, you’ve missed him  _snoring away_ , huh?”  Everyone laughed at that, even he himself: whether it was the wine, the soft squeeze Sam gave his hand or the fact that he felt more happy and complete now than he’d felt even at Thanksgiving, he was compelled to laugh softly but fully, shaking his head and speaking the words that he  _always_ used to show how much he loved and appreciated Sam’s candor and great wits.

“Elle est une rêve, j'le jure – mon rêve à moi.  …Donc, oui, on reste la nuit, and just for you guys – and especially for Lisette et David – we’ll behave like angels.”

“Oh, c'mon, Gabriel, like you’d be up to scratch anyway with half a bottle of wine in you…”, Louis remarked softly, grinning and winking at Gabriel: the pyro blushed meekly and refrained from answering, not really wanting to admit that he wasn’t all that affected by the alcohol.  Sam, of course, took care of that for him with a soft grin.

“Oh, but Louis, don’t let that half bottle fool you, he’s used to more than wine, so he’s still  _plenty_ 'up to scratch’, I’m, uh,  _happy_  to say.”  Gabriel could see surprise on his brother-in-law’s face and apprehension on his sister’s features, but when his father rolled his eyes and shook his head before replying, he found both of those preferable to the  _teasing understanding_ his father suddenly displayed, probably a mingled effect of the wine he’d had and the warmth of seeing his son again.

“Ah, t'es un vrai Dantan – n'importe que t'es soûlé, si ta p'tite femme en voudra, t'voudra bien-”

“ _Papa,_ je t'en prie, dis pas telles choses!”, Annabelle reacted, sounding just as shocked as he felt, Gabriel mused.  He had expected his father to be shocked at the mention of his drinking problem, or at the very least that the man would steer away from the subject as well, not… not  _pat him on the head verbally_ for it.  As it now was, Marc Dantan shrugged and gave Gabriel a lopsided grin that he supposed he had as well when contemplating something lewd.

“Ta mère n'en a jamais protesté… et quoi, Annabelle, t'as toujours dit 'l'amour est belle chose’-”

“Oui, mais je veux pas que tu fais rougir Sam!”, the woman said, to which Sam reacted with a modest blush that probably wasn’t due to his father’s lewd words but due to the fact that the man had compared the relationship between himself and his wife to the relationship between his son and herself.

“…I… it’s okay, I just didn’t expect him to say  _that_. Papa, je pense qu'il y a plus, beaucoup plus, que juste 'le pouvoir d'encore faire l'amour quand on est saoulé’ qui fait de vous et de mon cher Gabriel des vrais Dantan.”  For a little while, the room was quiet, and then Gabriel heard his father chuckle and looked back at him just in time to see him nod softly.

“T'as raison, ma chère.  Ah, si Marylise m'avait entendue…  she would 'ave scolded me for sayink eet.  Even more so for embarrassink Gabri’ et Belle.  Ah, she adored zem.  Gabri’ etait son petit fils à mama… 'e was always zee mama’s boy-”

“Papa, t'le faites sonner comme ci c'est du faux pas.”, Gabriel said, crossing his arms, and Annabelle laughed lightly.

“Frèrot, t'as l'air d'un enfant mépris, c'est trop mignon-”

“Ah, merde, c'est pitiable, comme toi et papa m'taquinent…  Sammy, protège-moi-”, Gabriel implored, wrapping an arm lazily around his girlfriend to find her return the favor and give him a dazzling smile even if she didn’t answer the way he wanted her to.

“But I can’t defend you from them, mon amour, j'suis désolée… je peux seulement te faire sentir mieux.  …Oh, come over here, you  _silly man_ …”, she gently berated him, pulling him against her a little more tightly to press a kiss onto his lips that had Annabelle sigh softly and his father chuckle again, raising his glass of wine to the two of them.

“A votre santé, mes chers – may you be just as 'appy – non, may you be  _a thousand times 'appier_ than I was with your mère, Gabri’!  …And may you be more successful as I was in 'oldink on to zat 'appiness.”  The latter made Gabriel frown, feeling the atmosphere turn cold around him.  His father had never spoken to him about what had happened between him and his mother: all he knew was what his mother had said, namely that sometimes people fell out of love again, and what Annabelle had later confessed to him, which was that their father had been the one to ask for a divorce because he hadn’t been able to 'pretend’ anymore.  All in all, his father had seemed like the bad one in the story, even despite the fact that his mother had found new happiness with a new partner and his father had never even seen other women.  The others seemed to sense it as well: Annabelle drank down the remaining wine in her own glass, Louis looked between him and Marc Dantan nervously… only Sam, who smiled his way encouragingly, didn’t look like she was the least bit anxious about the sudden change of mood.

“…Uh, Louis, while you put les petits in bed, why don’t I show Sam where she and Gabriel will sleep tonight?”, his sister said softly, to which Louis nodded, getting up to quickly pick up the children – David got up with a yawn and Lisette only managed a sleepy 'q-quoi’ before laying her head on her father’s shoulders and falling asleep again.  Sam also got up, but not before leaning in for a quick peck on his cheek and a hushed whispered admonishion.

“Let your father talk, don’t yell at him, he loves you and it’s clear he loved your mother very much, don’t forget that…”  Normally, when he was upset, Gabriel found reason elude him and emotion take the upper hand: but now, with just a few words from Sam and the somewhat sad sigh his father gave as the door closed behind his girlfriend, secluding the two men from the others, he found anger taking a backseat to a more rational frame of mind.

“…Papa, j'dois le savoir…  You said 'may you be more successful than me at holding on to happiness’ – but Annabelle always told me  _you_ were the one to get a divorce from mama.  I need to know what happened.”

“T'me promets de pas…  Ah, m'regardes, cherchant des excuses, demandant que t'sois pas fâché… you deserve to know zee truth, Gabri’, donc t'reçois la vérité.  Ta maman et moi, on était mariés et on était heureux pour quatorze ans – ou, pour le dire plus juste, on a semblé heureux à tout notre famille pour quatorze ans.  Nous avons eu Belle, qui nous aimons tant, et ensuite il y a cinq ans de pas avoir d'la chance afin que ton naissance, Gabriel… mais c'était pas comme tout le monde pensait, que moi et Marylise ont justement eu d'la malchance à avoir un deuxième enfant.  La vérité, c'est que nous avons été séparés pour trois ans, parce que j'avais des… doutes.  J'vivait avec… un de mes collègues.  Ta mère était tout seule pour les trois années premières d'la vie d'Annabelle, j'étais pas là.  Après, elle me manquait de plus en plus, on a parlé, j'étais réloqué vers notre maison propre, et un an plus tard, on a eu toi, Gabri’.  Aucune personne d'ma famille ou d'la famille de Marylise en savait.  …Après que toi était né, Gabriel, des choses ont changés, mais j'étais de plus en plus sûr que j'pourrais plus rester avec Marylise, que c'était pas fair pour elle… e-et aussi, ce collègue avec qui j'avait convivé pour trois ans… tu dois le comprendre, les temps à ce moment étaient beaucoup plus différents…”  Gabriel found himself utterly flabbergasted by his father’s stammered admission, not needing the man to voice the remainder of it.

“D-donc mama avait menti?”, he asked delicately, and Marc Dantan nodded.

“J'sais pas qu'elle a menti, mais j'ai jamais arrêté à aimer ma chère Marylise.  …Mais t'dois savoir tout, Gabriel.  On a decidé  _ensemble_ qu'est-ce que nous te dirions, toi et Belle, et on a décidé _ensemble_ qu'est-ce que nous dirions à nos familles et nos amis, nos collègues…  J'la aimait encore quand on s'a séparé, Gabriel, je le jure, j'ai jamais arrêté à la aimer, elle était mon grand amour, c'est pourquoi je t'dis maintenant,  _ne quitte jamais ton Samantha._ Même si tu te trouves amoureux d'un autre, n'importe qui.  Ne la quitte jamais, elle te rends heureux et sans elle-”

“Sans elle, papa, j'mourrais.”, Gabriel admitted, looking at his hands. His father’s reaction surprised him just as much as the man’s previous admission did.

“…Alors, ça, je comprends si bien… j'ai toujours esperé que moi et Marylise…. même quand elle était ensemble avec Jack, même si j'voulais jamais faire personne malheureux.  J'ai toujours aimé trop ta mère, même si j'pensais quelques fois que j'pourrais pas plus mentir-”

“Papa, t'dois pas le dire, je comprends.”, Gabriel said softly, gently biting his lip and wishing that he still had wine in his glass so he could wash away the sudden rising lump in his throat that made it hard to speak or even breathe.  “D-donc…”

“Gabri’, t'pourrais jamais le comprendre, et j'espère bien que t'comprendras jamais.  Cette divorce était une erreur grave d'ma partie.  Ne jette  _jamais_ l'amour de ta vie, Gabriel.  Ne la quitte jamais.  N'importe quoi, n'importe combien de doutes t'aurais – si tu l'aime encore, ne la quitte pas.”  Then, the man sighed, and Gabriel tentatively spoke to voice the one question that burned in his mind suddenly.

“Ce collègue… as-je lui vu?”

“J'pense que non.  T'étais bien jeune quand ça c'est passé, que quatre ans, et t'étais p’t-être onze ans quand c'était fini.  T'as jamais su, et Annabelle n'as jamais su aussi.  J'le regrette – de mentir à tout l'monde, de douter, de penser que c'était mieux pour tout le monde si moi et Marylise se separaient… j'le regrette jusqu'a cet instant.  D-don’t… don’t leave 'er, your Samantha, Gabri’.  For nuzzink or no one.”

“Papa, j'te jure, j'la quitterais jamais, pour personne.  J'preferais de mourir.”, Gabriel admitted honestly, sighing and getting up from the sofa.  “…J'pense que je dois en dormir une nuit.  Pour le… pour le _comprendre_.” In truth, he didn’t long as much for his bed as for Sam, to hold her and talk to her about this, about his father basically admitting he’d fallen in love with one of his colleagues, one of his  _male_ colleagues at that, and living with them for three years even before having divorced his mother.  It was too much to properly sink in.  His father nodded, suddenly looking years older than his age in the sparse light of the table lamp, his frown making his wrinkles look like deep cuts in his face.

“…Va, Gabri’… e-et j'suis désolé.  J'ai la nette impression que je t'ai  _failli_ , mon fils.  J’m'ai toujours senti un peu comme j'ai dû être mieux… à Marylise, à Belle et toi, à tout le monde…”, the man said, and Gabriel reacted before he even properly realized what he said himself.

“Papa, je comprends, beaucoup plus que n'importe qui d'autre.  J'ai laissé mon p'tit ami pour Samantha, et il y a des moments, au début de notre affaire, quand elle m'a dit qu'elle ne pouvait pas me donner son coeur… j'ai eu des regrets aussi… mais pas plus maintenant. Je comprends ce douleur que tu sentes, je l'ai senti moi-même, mais j'ai eu d'la chance et pour moi, c'est devenu beaucoup mieux qu'avant.  …T'as fait une erreur, ouais, mais… t'as souffert assez, je pense.  Et je pense que mama savait que tu l'aimait encore… elle t'aimait aussi, je pense, elle était toujours beaucoup triste d'en penser…”  Sighing, he shook his head and looked his father in the eye.  “Dad, ya didn’t fail me or Annabelle, or even mom.  You failed your heart, and that’s why you felt like shit.  I’m not mad.  Annabelle wouldn’t be mad either.  Mom sure as hell wasn’t mad, she still loved you, and she always encouraged me and Annabelle to visit you often and show you how much you meant to us.  …J'pense qu'on doit dormir, et tout ranger dans nos têtes, et se réveiller demain le matin et se sentir mieux.”

“Bonne idée, Gabri’… bonne nuit, et… j'suis désolé-”

“J'suis pas désolé, papa.  I never apologized for bein’ the way I am and for doin’ stupid fuckin’ shit.  Take a page outta my book for once, huh?  Don’t apologize.  Smile because ya had at least fifteen fuckin’ fantastic years with mom.  And two kids.”

“Deux enfants  _merveilleux_ , Gabri’.”, his father corrected with a broad, happy grin, and as the two men retired for the night, their minds felt lighter.

 

“Bonjour, tante Samantha!”  The moment Sam heard the cheerful, childish greeting of Lisette, she smiled, as did Gabriel next to her despite how gloomy he’d been feeling before.  After he’d come up to their room the previous night, he’d told her exactly what his father had said, and though she had expected the topic to be heavy to her boyfriend, when he said his father had basically confessed to having left his mother for a relationship with a  _male_ colleague…  _that_ had surprised her.  From what Gabriel had told her, he’d never felt like his father had been accepting of his preference for men, but the reason for that was now… somehow clearer and even more dubious all at once.  It was little to no surprise that they’d both slept very uneasily, and they hadn’t dared do more than kiss each other, no matter how clearly eager they’d both been.  So when the British pyro headed down the stairs dressed in her most decent pyjamas, with a housecoat thrown over them for good measure, she felt more than a little tense; and Gabriel, who walked next to her dressed similarly though his pyjamas were clearly only just thrown on, looked even more tense than she felt, appropriately so.

“Bonjour, p'tite…”, Gabriel said, extending his arms to show she could give him a hug if she wanted to, but the little girl poked out her tongue at him and instead turned back to Sam as she answered the little girl’s greeting.

“Bonjour, chère Lisette, t'as dormi bien?”

“Oui! Et j'ai…  J'ai rêvé de toi et oncle Gabriel!”, she answered loudly, prompting Gabriel to cast her an amused look that showed he was already way past his previous gloom already courtesy of the four-year-old.  Rather than focus on her previous thoughts, Sam wholeheartedly went along with it as well.

“Oh, c'est vrai?”

“Ouiiii, j'ai rêvé que toi et oncle Gabriel vous avez mariés!  Et-et-et t'as une belle jupe tout blanche!  Et oncle Gabriel a dit 'oui’ et tu as dit 'oui’ et après vous avez donné un gros câlin et t'as jeté ton bouquet de fleurs au soleil!”  Gabriel lightly laughed next to her, shaking his head and speaking teasingly.

“T'as rêvé de toi-même en une belle jupe aussi, Lisette, hein?”

“Mamaaaaaaan, oncle Gabriel me taquine, j'aime paaaaaaas!”, the little girl cried out, poking her tongue out at Gabriel, who nearly roared with laughter at that point, gaining him a very unforgiving look from David, who was pulling his sister along.

“Come on, allez, Li-li, t'vas pas recevoir des cadeaux quand tu taquines oncle Gabriel et tante Sam-”

“Ah, finally someone that speaks f- ahem, finally someone that makes  _sense_ in the house.  David, mon cher, ya remember what I told ya day before yesterday, right?”

“Oui, oncle Gabriel, I still remember.  Our gift from you and aunt Sam is being sent to our house because you didn’t have it yet and you can’t stay after tomorrow… which is kind of sad… vous m'allez manquer, oncle, tante.  You’re funny and you’ve got a lot of exciting stories to tell about your work-”

“Oh, I knew you’d like those stories about fighting and danger and secret missions…”, Sam said with a generous smile, crouching to Lisette’s level when the little girl pulled her housecoat impatiently, clearly feeling ignored.  “Et  _toi_ , t'as eu une rêve tres belle, je pense-”

“Tante Samantha, t'vas vraiment avoir mariés avec oncle Gabriel?  Are you weally going to marry?”

“Weally.”, Sam said with a generous smile, to which the little girl of course answered as seriously as only preschoolers could be.

“ _Weally_ weally?”

“ _Weally weally_ weally. For certain.  White dress and  _everything_.”, Sam admitted, to which Gabriel added his two cents with a look that held the middle between genuine bliss and mild teasing of his little niece.

“T'vas le voir, elle va briller plus que le soleil ce jour… et elle va être beaucoup plus belle et ravissante que tous les fleurs d'monde entier… tout le monde va être jaloux de moi parce que j'vais voler le coeur de ta tante pour  _toujours._ …Eh bien, c'est à dire, si elle me dit 'oui’-”

“Pfeh, Gabriel, you should know better than to think I’d ever say 'no’ to you, mon amour… and you know full well you shouldn’t try and flatter yourself into my arms and my heart, you’re already  _in there_ and you’re  _never coming out of there again_ -” She leaned closer to Gabriel, seeking to kiss him sweetly just as she always did when she admitted that he was once again using his charm to great effect, but seeing the suddenly avid look on the two children’s faces, she decided to wink at Gabriel, who fortunately caught on quickly enough and nodded minutely as she spoke.  “…Hang on a minute, Gabriel, mon âme, we  _always_ give each other kisses, maybe we should stop embarrassing little David and Lisette by doing that?  I mean, they always  _blush_ when we kiss, and they  _giggle_ …”

“Myeah, maybe you’re right, mon ange de feu… donc, pas des bisous, pas de câlins, pas d'petites bises sur la joue ou le nez ou autre part-”

“ _Noooooon, oncle Gabriel, tu dois donner des bisous à tante Samantha parce que tu dois montrer que tu la aime!”_ , the girl protested loudly: David, who had been about to explain to his sister that they were just teasing her, winced at the volume of her voice and bit back his words.  “ _Nooooon_ , elle va jamais dire 'oui’ à toi, oncle, si tu câlinez pas…”

“ _You_ just want a fancy dress and a lot of cake…”, Samantha teased, and finally the little girl caught on that they’d been teasing her: a brilliant smile took over her features and she gently pushed Sam closer to Gabriel, who wasted no time in wrapping an arm around her waist and holding her close.  “Ah well, it was a little hard to resist giving you a kiss anyway, right, mon amour?”

“Oh, too right.  But I still think I should wait until these two got their backs turned and only  _then_ give you a kiss – they want us to marry just because they’ll get to wear fancy clothes and get to go to a fancy party…”  More protests followed from the two children, but by now Annabelle and Louis had heard them and the two came out to rescue Sam and Gabriel.

“David, Lisette, t'veux plus vos cadeaux?”, Louis asked gently: the speed with which the two children ran into the living room, followed by their excited squeals and the sound of wrapping paper being torn, had the four adults chuckling.  Sam had to admit that Annabelle looked a lot more different in the morning: she, too, still wore her pyjamas and a housecoat, but Sam had always seen her with perfectly coiffed hair and subtle but very flattering make-up, and so to see her like this was somewhat surprising.  Louis noticed Samantha’s surprise and chuckled softly.  “Yes, I’m sad to say that ma Belle doesn’t roll out of bed looking picture perfect-”

“Neither do I, Louis.  It’s just… she looks-”  The truthful continuation was that Annabelle looked her age, but Sam would rather swallow a mouthful of spicy red peppers before she’d let that escape her.

“You can say I look old, Samantha, ma chère, I’m  _used_ to it by now.  Looking into the mirror, there’s an aging woman looking back, makes it hard to deny…  But as long as Louis likes that aging woman, and as long as David and Lisette don’t run away screaming, I’m not complaining.”

“…You look younger with make-up.  There, how’s that for compromise?”, Sam said, and the answering smile she got from her lover’s sister was bright and cheerful.

“T'as choisi tes mots parfaitement, ma chère… Gabriel had better 'really really’ marry you, or I’m not forgiving him.”, the woman said, nudging her brother gently in the ribs with her elbow, prompting an over-the-top sigh from him.

“Alors, c'est quoi ce matin?  Tout le monde veut que j'la propose ou quoi? Ca va bien se passer, mais on doit avoir d'la patience, merde…  But Sam knows that every other thought is a proposal, and hell, she ain’t saying no to 'em.”

“…We’re not still talking about  _marriage_ proposals here, are we?”, Sam said teasingly, finally kissing her boyfriend lightly on the lips, causing Louis to grin and shake his head.

“I think Gabriel’s self-control is starting to bypass miraculeux and heading straight for incroyable.  …Okay, uh, shall we go inside, or do you two want a moment alone?  Dieu sait que Lisette et David n'vont plus cesser de vous taquiner… you’re their new favorite persons.  Oncle Gabriel who’s six feet tall and covered in scars, and tanta Samantha who manages to make tough oncle Gabriel look like a teddy bear.”, he said with a soft grin, and Sam blushed.

“Oh, don’t make it sound like that’s impossible, Gabriel  _is_ gentle and sweet at heart.  There’s just… a _lot_ of walls around that heart… with swearing, and lewd thoughts, and great big moats of burning gasoline…”  Then, she sighed and gave Gabriel a squeeze that he answered.  Looking into his eyes, she saw a ghost of his previous gloom return, and the blue depths of his irises seemed to shout pleas at her, which in turn caused her to take a shaky breath and speak.  “…Annabelle, uh, yesterday your father told Gabriel about how your parents’ divorce came about.” Instantly, the temperature seemed to plummet in the hallway, especially when Sam followed up with the calm and neutral words: “…And I get the distinct impression that the only one in this house that didn’t know, apart from the children and I, who don’t have any reason to know about it, was Gabriel.”

“It’s true.”, Annabelle admitted, looking pleadingly at her brother – Gabriel looked appropriately upset but not angry, Sam noticed, and the woman relaxed again as she continued: “Maman m'a dit quand j'étais quinze ans, elle n'avait pas d'choix, Gabri’.  Je les ai vue.  Papa et son… collègue.  Ils avaient l'air… triste.  They looked like they didn’t like going out together.”

“Yeah, well, dad said 'les temps étaient différents’, so j'pense que lui et son… amant… ont dû garder leur amour caché pour tout l'monde, et ça rend bien triste.”, Gabriel admitted, sighing. “J'sais pas quoi en penser, même maintenant.  I mean, I don’t…  _resent_ him for it.  It’s just… well, dad always acted like he didn’t like me goin’ for guys-”

“Ah, mais ça, je comprends bien.”, Louis said, looking a little sorry. “It wasn’t uncommon for same-sex couples to be shunned from society back in the days when your dad and your mom divorced, Gabriel, Belle. And your dad knew that society had changed enough to no longer make it so  _impossible_ for two men or two women to live together, but it was still  _difficult_. And it still  _is_ difficult, even now.  Just last month, there were two gay couples that were assaulted on the street and beat up so badly they were hospitalized. Ton père n'as que voulu te sauvegarder de telles choses, Gabriel. After all, he had to understand how you felt,  _he felt the same way_.”

“Okay, bien, I know he just wanted to spare me the hurt, but was  _shutting off from me_ really the way?  I mean, he basically stopped talkin’ to me the moment he figured it out, back when I was seventeen.  He didn’t even come to my fu- to my graduation!”, Gabriel said, his fists clenched beside him, arms tense as ever, and Sam gently grabbed his tightly clenched hands and gently pried them loose again, something that got her boyfriend to relax slowly but surely until he smiled at her softly, still looking upset but no longer wound up about it.

“Look, Gabriel… parents always have this preconceived notion of what’s 'best’ for their children.  I mean, look at  _me_ for example.  My mother had a right fit when she heard I wanted to study Applied Chemistry for a career in pyrotechnics, and she  _completely_ had a breakdown when I told her I’d study in Holland and that I’d secured an internship at a  _fireworks factory_ …”

“That’s different, mon ange-”, Gabriel started, only for Sam to sigh and speak on, blushing softly as she did so.  She hadn’t exactly bargained on speaking about the subject she was about to broach in front of her future sister-in-law and her husband.

“Okay then, how about this: the first time my parents learnt I also slept with  _girls,_ they were so shocked they very nearly kicked me out of the house.  I was so upset by their reaction that I was this close to asking Damien if I could move in with him.”  As she expected, three pairs of eyes regarded her in utter shock: then, however, Gabriel’s eyes softened and he grinned, shaking his head.

“I didn’t know ya actually consciously-  I mean, I knew ya got up close and personal with Katrin, who’s now with your brother, but I thought that was only 'cause ya were shitfaced-”

“Gabri’, parle un peu plus bas, s'il te plaît, there’s  _children_ in the next room.”, Annabelle lightly admonished Gabriel, who continued in a more subdued tone.

“…so you actually went out  _lookin’_ to hook up with girls, huh?”

“Well, yes, I guess I did.  I mean, it was just… purely physical.  I never  _fell in love_ with a girl, of course, which makes it a little different from how things were with you, since you did fall for men heart _and_ body… but the point is, my mother had an even worse shouting match with me than when I’d decided to study Applied Chemistry.  She asked me, in that order, how I could be so depraved, how I could be so selfish, and how I could bear the thought of never having children.  That last one got me to tell her that I still slept with guys too – bad decision, because then she seemed to think I meant ’ _at the same time_ ’ and… well, let’s just say my father pulling me aside to have his own concerned talk with me was  _more_ than welcome.  Harsh words were used on both sides between my mother and I.  And she, of course, hit me.”  She hadn’t expected the collective intake of breath from Annabelle and Louis, who suddenly looked at her as if she’d been tortured, making her fidget a little uncomfortably.  But then, when she looked at Gabriel and his look of sympathy for her, her resolve to talk her boyfriend out of his gloom strengthened and she pushed on despite how awkward she felt.  “…My dad didn’t talk much, actually, but I could tell that it hurt him, to see his daughter actively pursue women.  I thought he was judging me for the longest time until I secured my job with Katchan Fire at the cost of my last relationship, at which point he asked me if I was going to be with a girl next time and I plainly told him that I didn’t as much  _fall in love_ with girls as I  _fell in lust_ with them.  He sighed – you know the kinds of sighs, those heavy fatherly ones that I’ve seen Grant heave at times when you talk to him, mon amour – and then returned my honesty and told me that all he wanted was to protect me from having my heart broken, not by my partners but by  _the world_. Bigotry and prejudice are still rampant, as much today as it was eighteen years ago, when you had your first experiences with guys, and sadly still as much as  _thirty_ years ago, when your father made his 'damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ decision to separate from your mother for the colleague he had a relationship of seven years with.  Your father shut off from you because he was mentally preparing for you to get hurt by those around you that judged you.  And all your father wanted – all your father  _wants,_  mon amour, is to keep the world from chewing you up and spitting you out simply because you, as a man, happen to feel attraction to men.” For the longest time, silence reigned, and then Gabriel smiled and nodded, looping an arm slowly over her shoulders and rubbing his hand over her housecoat.

“T'es une ange véritable, Sam, et je t'aime tant.  J'peux même plus exprimer mes sentiments de façon suffisante.  …Belle, Louis, j'vous jure, if Sammy ain’t misses Samantha Dantan within the next five fuckin’ years, I’m a goddamn moron.”  Annabelle and Louis relaxed as well, Sam noticed in the split second it took Gabriel to pull her into his form and lean down to tenderly kiss her, which got answered with loud and ill-repressed giggles from the doorway, where Lisette stood together with her grandfather.

“Oncle Gabriel et tante Samantha toujours câlinez, papy, c'est parce qu'ils veulent plus ses cadeaux!”  Gabriel instantly poked his tongue out at the little girl, but his words were enough to bring a smile to Sam’s face, especially with how easily they were spoken and how warm they were.

“C'est parce que ton oncle Gabriel  _aime_ ta tante Samantha et il veut le montrer, p'tite princesse, n'importe que tout le monde le voit.  Alright, ou sont ces cadeaux dont t'as parlé, ma chère Lisette?”  As the little girl devolved into a childishly gleeful invitation for Gabriel and her to go  _hunting_ for their presents with her, apparently having hidden them just for that purpose, Sam smiled broadly.  Her lover’s gloom was completely gone now, she felt, and even if it wasn’t, most of it was replaced by something far better: warmth and happiness for the moment.

 

“Okay, so… donc…”, Gabriel said, laughing lightly.  He felt like a little child all over again, even if he couldn’t even fit in the treehouse overhead anymore, from where Lisette and David smiled down at him.  “You want me to be the dragon, right?”

“Oui, t'as l'air de dragon-”, Lisette said semi-seriously, for which she promptly got elbowed in the ribs gently by her brother.

“T'as pas appris de toujours être polie à les adultes?”

“Pfeh, oncle Gabriel n'es pas 'les adultes’, il est  _oncle Gabriel_.”, Lisette said, causing the tall man to snort.  The little girl reminded him of the way Annabelle used to be when they were children, always painfully direct and honest in speaking her thoughts.  It also reminded him of what his father had said the previous night, about how the children resembled Marylise eerily much and how she’d always spoken her mind as well, no matter how bluntly voiced the thought rolled from her tongue.

“Ta mamy Marylise serait heureuse de t'entendre.”, he admitted, smiling softly up at Lisette, who replied with the same blunt honesty as before, which made her thought all the more poignant.

“Mamy Marylise  _est_ heureuse de entendre moi, oncle Gabriel, elle toujours entend, et elle toujours sait.  Elle est une ange, tu sais?  Avec des  _grandes_ ailes  _blanc comme la neige_!” Then, the girl spoke on, pulling him back into the fantasy adventure the children were supposed to be acting out with his help.  “Uncle Gabriel, so you’re the dwagon, a-and you’re a  _mean_ dwagon that  _eats_ little princesses-”

“Comme toi,  _RRRUUUAAAAAAHHHH…_ ”, he said, roaring softly and gaining giggles from both the little girl and her older brother, who cast him a look that clearly begged for pity.  “Et David, qu'est-ce qu'il va être?”

“I’m the hero-”, David started, only to get elbowed in the ribs a little less-than-gently by his sister.

“Non, David, t'es toujours le héros, moi j'veux aussi être le héros! Laisse-moi!”, she loudly complained.

“You didn’t even want to play!”, David complained, to which Lisette of course answered with a loud and shrill exclaimed reiteration of her previous words.

“ _NON, LAISSE-MOI!!”_

“Mais qu'est-ce que tu as aujourd'hui?!”, David said, sounding exasperated, before turning to Gabriel and casting him another pleading look.  “Oncle Gabriel ne reste pas ici si tu ne t'comportes mieux, Lisette!”

“Mais t'es  _toujours_ le héros et j'veux  _aussiiiiii…_ ”, the little girl said sulkily, crossing her arms and looking on the verge of breaking down in tears, which got Gabriel to sigh and look at David.

“Je pense bien qu'il y a beaucoup de place pour  _deux_ héros dans cette cabane perchée, ou non?”, he said, his tone hopefully conveying to his nephew that he should allow his sister to have some fun as well, and after a dramatic but mostly redundant sigh, David nodded.

“Okay, okay, bien, t'peux-”  Instantly, his sister hugged him and gave him a big, wet, sloppy kiss on his cheek, causing him to instantly wipe it off though he grinned as he turned back to Gabriel.  “Okay, uncle Gabriel, you’re the dragon and we have to defeat you without you breathing fire on us!”, he said, and just like that Gabriel got absorbed into the pretense they wove: roaring and flapping his arms as best as he could – which was made a little more difficult by the thick coat he wore over an equally thick woollen sweater – he stomped around through the snow.

“ _ROOOAAAAAAH,_ je suis le dragon grand et méchant et je cherche des petits héros pour mon déjeuner!!”  He sniffed loudly, ignoring the giggles that issued from overhead, before looking up at them with a grin.  “Ahhh, I smell little heroes to snack on!   _RRAAAAAAAGHH_ , come down, little heroes, I just want a nibble-”

“ _Non_ , on déscend pas vers toi, t'es méchant, t'vas nous manger!”, Lisette exclaimed gleefully, to which Gabriel answered with a grin.

“Ah, j'dois m'envoler vers vous!  Ahahaaa!”  He put one hand on the ladder leading up to the treehouse – not intending to actually go through with it, because as good as his father was at carpentry, he wasn’t about to test whether the wooden boards he’d nailed against the tree would hold his weight – and was instantly rewarded for it by a snowball to the face.  The snow was only loosely packed, so the moment it hit his face, it exploded into a faceful of snow that further chilled his already freezing nose and cheeks and made his chapped lips hurt slightly.  “Pfffft…”, he blew the snow out of his mouth loudly before running a hand over his face, wiping the remainder of the snow off his eyes and cheeks.  “Hmmm, I need to be very careful, mes deux p'tits héros sont armés avec d'la neige-” The children meant to react to that, more snowballs ready in their hands, but just at that moment, the door to the house opened and Annabelle stuck her head outside.

“Lisette, David, there’s hot chocolate if you want!”

“Lait au chocolat chaude!”, Lisette exclaimed, nearly jumping over the edge of the treehouse balcony in her haste to get the promised treat – Gabriel inhaled sharply and tensed, ready to jump and catch her if she slipped, but she clearly had a much better balance than he anticipated, because she made it to the ladder and climbed down at top speed, running off through the snow like a miniature snow plow, making a track for David, who climbed down more carefully than she did, leaving Gabriel standing alone in the snow, wondering whether he should head inside as well, but before he was decided, he heard familiar footsteps approach him and turned around to see Sam walk towards him, hands stuck deep in her pockets.

“Mon ange, I didn’t hear you come outside.”, he said, and she shook her head.

“I came outside when you were busy helping those two little hellraisers to clear the snow out of their treehouse, and I stuck around while you played the 'big bad mean dwagon’.”, she said endearingly and with a broad smile on her features, which in turn got Gabriel smiling just as broadly.

“Ah, donc t'as vu qu'ils m'ont touché avec cette boule de neige?”

“Yes, that was one well-aimed snowball.  There’s still a little bit of molten snow in your eyebrows – here, let me…”  She moved her hands from the pockets of her coat and gently wiped over his eyebrows, her fingertips warm against his skin to the point of feeling like they were on fire.

“T'es assez chaude, mon ange…”, he murmured, smiling down at her when she pressed the palms of her hands against his cheeks before answering.

“No, c'est toi qui est assez froid, mon âme.  You’re just cold.”

“You know, you could get my body temperature up in a heartbeat if ya wanted to…”, Gabriel said teasingly, causing Sam to chuckle and pull him closer.

“Mhm, I know… and it’d be cruel of me not to, right?”, she said, leaning into him and making him feel warmer already, the slight cold breeze that hit his cheeks feel extra chilly all of a sudden.

“Oh, Sammy, t'as aucune idée comment tu me fais sentir à ce moment… si pleine d'amour, pleine de chaleur…”, he whispered, the vapor from his breath misting around his lover’s face like a shroud of temporary mist, and when she answered him, her breath did the same to him.

“Oh, I think I know better than anyone else how you feel, mon amour, je le sens aussi, je me sens aussi rempli complètement avec chaleur et amour, juste pour toi.”  Smiling, she let her warm hands trail over his temples to his hair, gently pulling him closer for a light kiss that lasted and lasted, neither of them willing to let go of the contact between their lips.  Minutes passed in heartbeats until they finally relinquished their hold on the other and parted, their breaths making short bursts of fog appear in between them.  “Oh, Gabriel, I love you, more and more each day, you know that?”

“Heh, yeah, and it’s the same for me – chaque nouvelle journée qui arrive, j'me trouve en tombant plus fort pour toi.  T'es mon univers… t'es mon ciel.”, he admitted, looking right into her hazel eyes to see deep affection fill their depths.

“Gabriel, you’re my world and my heaven too.  T'es tout.  Je ne veux que toi dans ma vie – je n'ai besoin que de toi dans ma vie.  …Earlier, with Lisette telling us about her dream-”  Gabriel groaned, though only teasingly so, something that Sam clearly understood if the mirth in her gaze and the grin on her features were any signs to go by.

“Tout le monde, j'le jure, tout le monde veut que je t'demande la main…”

“Tout le monde veut que nous sommes heureux, mon amour… everyone just wants us to be happy, and that means  _together_.”, Sam corrected lightly, prompting Gabriel to pull her even more tightly against him, looking down at her sincerely as he spoke next.

“Donc, si j'te pose ce question, mon ange, t'dira pas 'non’?  Ya wouldn’t say 'no’, is that what you mean?”

“Gabriel, I’ll never say 'no’ to you, especially not if that’s the question.” Whether he was first to kiss her or she to kiss him, he didn’t know – and it didn’t matter either, he mused with a far-off, detached corner of his brain that was still functional while their lips were pressed together in a much more passionate and longing kiss.  His hands pressed hard into her coat in an attempt to make their caresses felt even through three thick layers of cotton and wool: it was an endeavor that clearly succeeded marvellously, if her soft groan was any indication.  “…Oh, Gabriel, mon amour…”, Sam uttered reverently in between that first longing kiss and the next, her own hands mirroring his efforts to get them to forget that three thick layers of clothing were separating their skin from the other’s fingertips: her grip on him was tight and unbreakable, making him long for the evening, when they’d be back at his own house…

“T’m'embrases trop facilement, Sam… ya make me burn with need for ya too damn easily, Sammy, it ain’t fair…”, Gabriel whispered in the quiet between them, eliciting a shiver from his girlfriend that had little to nothing to do with the cold or the snow; in a matter of heartbeats, Gabriel found himself pressing Sam tightly against the trunk of the tree in which the treehouse was built, kissing her with abandon once more and letting his hands trail down her back to her behind and then up again, managing to get underneath her coat and then worming their way underneath her sweater as well, causing his girlfriend to groan happily-

“Uncle Gabriel, aunt Samantha, papy said to tell you to come back inside or you’ll catch a cold.”  David’s voice issued from the other side of the door, his deep blush at having caught them at a delicate moment clearly apparent in his words, and reluctantly Gabriel took a step back from his girlfriend, looking her over with more hunger than he wished to admit to himself.  She looked like she’d been getting into it as well, what with her cheeks rosier than the wind could ever manage and her breathing coming in rapid little huffs of vapor.

“We’re comin’ inside!”, Gabriel quickly called to his nephew before speaking more softly to Sam: “…Merde, si David nous aurait pas appelé…  I just can’t resist you, mon ange…”

“L-likewise, Gabriel.  But we shouldn’t… your father’s right about that cold. Damn it, it feels  _ten times_ as cold out here all of a sudden…”, Sam admitted, and Gabriel grinned at her – not lewdly but sincerely, no longer feeling in the mood to tease her.

“I’m bettin’ that there’s still some lait au chocolat left to warm our bodies back up.  Ah, je t'aime, mon ange, mon coeur…  Don’t think I forgot what ya said before, you’re never gettin’ away from me again.”

“Suits me just fine, mon amour, I don’t  _want_ to 'get away’ from you again.”, she answered, gently taking hold of his hand and entwining their fingers as they walked back to the house.  Warmth crawled up his arm from her skin, Gabriel found, running straight to the very heart of him – and when he glanced at her, he found his own heart wholeheartedly say 'yes’ to her in return.


	38. And now together we are so strong (Warm holidays part 4)

“Papa, t'as pas dû venir ici aujourd'hui!”, Gabriel said in utter surprise as he saw his father stand at the door, but Sam could tell with ease that his father’s surprise was more than welcome.

“Gabriel, please, don’t let your dad stand in the cold, invite him inside! …Papa, que c'est bon de te revoir une dernière fois aujourd'hui…”

“Ah, mais j'pourrais pas laisser partir mon fils et toi, ma chère, sans te dire ‘à la prochaine’ du façon suffisant, ou non?”, he said with a broad grin, patting Gabriel on the shoulder and then giving her a short but warm hug that had her smiling broadly.  Gabriel, however, was the first to speak up.

“Alors, papa, on n'a pas beaucoup d'temps, nous d'vons-”

“J'sais, Gabri’… I know you 'ave to pack, donc, pack, j'veux seulement t'accompagner à l'aeroport et te dire 'au revoir’-”

“Mais t'as déjà dit 'au revoir’ hier soir!”, Gabriel protested, to which his father reacted with crossed arms but in a teasing tone, his words causing Sam to blush softly.

“T'es fâché maintenant parce que t'as voulu passer tes derniers moments dans ta propre maison en t'amusant avec Sam-”

“Papa, dis pas!”, Gabriel said, for once blushing right along with her, telling her that Gabriel’s plan had indeed been to pack quickly and spend the time saved on her – not that she hadn’t known it already, because he’d been getting more and more handsy during their mutual endeavours to find back every last item of clothing they’d taken along.  However, Gabriel’s father clearly felt a little sorry for having brought it up as well: with a sigh, he nodded and spoke in a softer, more sincere voice.

“Alors, oui, j'dis plus… mais je suis venu ici pour te parler un p'tit peu. J'ai la nette impression que t'as des choses à me dire mais t'les dis pas.”  Again, Sam mentally commended the man for his sharp observation, because it was true that Gabriel had been mulling over what his father had told him on Christmas Evening.  Instantly, Gabriel turned serious as well – that surprised her.  He’d spent the past two days carefully avoiding the subject altogether, no matter who brought it up and no matter how implicitly they did it – but now, he simply nodded and took a deep breath.

“Yeah… oui, papa, j'ai des choses à te dire.  Sammy?”  When he spoke her name, softly and tentatively, holding out his hand, she took it, giving it a gentle squeeze that clearly promoted him to speak. “…Le plus important que je te dois dire, c'est… c'est que j'comprends, mais néanmoins j'comprends pas du tout au même temps.” When his father gave him a look of confusion, Gabriel continued in English for a second.  “…Papa, I understand why ya didn’t tell me or Belle… and I understand how ya had to have felt about it all. Mama… j'sais bien qu'elle était la femme d'ta vie, c'était – non, c’ _est_ clair quand t'parles d'elle.  M-mais j'comprends pas pourquoi t’m'as jamais… I don’t understand…”, he stammered, switching to English again as his grip on Sam’s hand grew vice-like and somewhat uncomfortable, but Sam bore it without even flinching, figuring that he’d relax again once the words were spoken.  “I don’t understand why ya didn’t  _support_ me more when I came out to the world, I guess.  Back then, I thought you were disappointed, or angry, 'cause this meant ya weren’t going to get a next generation of les enfants Dantan-”  Suddenly, his father interrupted him, surprising Sam as well because of the way the man cried suddenly.

“Gabri’, j-j'ai jamais voulu t'blesser ou t'faire sentir mauvais…  M-mais t'dois comprendre… j'avais vécu une telle liaison et ça s'a pas fini beau.  J'étais fâché d'moi-même pour quitter ta mère pour… pour une folie-”  Suddenly, Sam found herself speaking up in slow but heartfelt French, putting the hand that wasn’t busy holding Gabriel’s on the older man’s shoulder.

“Papa, ne dis pas que c'était une folie, c'était bien plus que ça.  Tu lui as aimé, et néanmoins que ton amour a fini, je pense que Gabriel mérite bien savoir tout.”  Giving both Gabriel’s hand and Marc Dantan’s shoulder an encouraging squeeze, she got both men to nod softly and give her soft, kind looks that spoke of affection, so much so that Marc Dantan turned to his son with a soft and genuine grin.

“J'ai déjà dit des milliers d'fois, mais… n'la quitte jamais. Maintenant j'vois bien pourquoi t'la appeles 'mon ange’, elle est un cadeau du ciel, vraiment…  Alors, oui… comment commencer?”

“Commence par me dire comment il s'appele.”, Gabriel said, and Marc Dantan nodded.

“Il s'appele Greg – Gregory Fisher.  J'avais déjà te dit qu'on était des collègues, non?  …Donc, un jour, après une fête avec les collègues, Greg avait trop bu et j'lui avait offré d'lui emmener chez lui… on parlait, et il a dit des choses concernant moi qui m'ont mis à penser.  Il n'était pas beau, mais il y avait quelque chose de…”

“Quelque chose qui t'as intéressé – ah, ça, j'comprends…”, Gabriel said, looking at Sam and making her remember how Gabriel had clearly fallen for her even when she’d been covered in scars and had been hairless.

“Oui… et j'ai été honnête vers Marylise et j'elle en a parlé, et elle a dit qu'elle le comprenne.  Donc j'ai confié mes sentiments a Greg et on d'venait des amants.  Mais après trois ans, en voyant Annabelle grandir et poser des questions, j'lui ai dit que mon premier responsabilité était à ma p'tite fille et il l'a compris d'son côté.  J'suis retourné à Marylise, qui m'as dit qu'il n'y avait aucune chose à pardonner parce que j'avais pas commis d'faux pas… et deux ans après, quand Belle avait six ans, t'es né.  Mais j'lui manquait.  Et Marylise l'avait vue, aussi.  J'voulait pas la quitter,  _vous_ quitter – j'aimais Marylise, et j'ai toujours aimé toi et Belle – mais j'me sentait de plus en plus… un prisonnier dans moi-même, t'sais?”

“Oh, yeah, I understand that completely…”, Gabriel said, biting his lip softly before nodding, signaling his father to continue, which the man did with a soft smile.

“Marylise l'a compris aussi.  Elle m'a dit un soir 'je pense qu'on doit parler d'nous maintenant, Marc’ – et on a parlé, et plus parlé…  Notre décision était dur, pour tous – j'avais toujours eu l'impression que j'abandonnais Belle et toi – et j'ai jamais cessé à aimer Marylise, et c'a lui fait mal de me laisser partir, j'sais bien… Mais au début, j'étais sûr que c'était mieux que vivre en mentant.  Les ans se sont passés, et Greg et moi… nous étions heureux, mais il y avait toujours ce… ce malaise au fond.  Nous n'avons jamais été… notre liaison n'était qu'une liaison pour tout l'monde.  Everyone always sought eet was zee passink phase.”, he said in English, and Gabriel groaned.

“That, I also understand completely.”

“Oui, je sais, et j'suis si désolé, Gabri’…”, Marc Dantan said, and now Sam spoke again, looking the man in the eyes.

“So how did it end?  Did you fall out, or did you just walk away from each other?”

“Ah, we deed not fall out, donc j'pense que nous simplement avons dit que ça n'marchait plus et…  Après, j’m'avais senti de plus en plus pire pour tout.  Pour te faillir, pour faillir Marylise – parce qu'à ce moment-là, c'était clair que sa vie n’m'inclurait plus jamais – mais peut-être ce qui m'as fait me sentir le plus mauvais, c'était que j’t'avait pas donné d'exemple bon.  I 'adn’t given you zee good role model, mon fils.”

“Dad, I wasn’t lookin’ for a  _role model_ when I came out, I was lookin’ for  _support_ …”, Gabriel said a little emphatically, and finally, Marc Dantan sighed and nodded, carefully looking at his feet while he spoke.

“J'sais… et j'suis si désolé pour ça aussi.  Donc, quand t'avais nous dit que t'préférait des gars, tout timide, j’m'sentais  _horrible_. Mais j’t'en prie, t'dois savoir que c'était pas tes préférences qui m'ont fait sentir comme ça – ni tes préférences, ni toi, Gabri’.  …Non, j'pensait que c'était  _à cause d'moi_ que t'as… merde, j'pensait vraiment que t'pensait-”

“Papa,  _merde_ , t'as vraiment t'en fait tant?”, Gabriel said softly, patting his father on the other shoulder, making Sam smile softly at him for how genuinely sad he sounded to see his father upset.  “J'ai jamais pensé que… j'sais pas quoi t'pensait que j'ai pensé mais j'te jure, j'l'ai pas pensé.  …Mais j'étais vraiment… j'ai toujours juste voulu que t'était là.  J'comprenait que toi et maman n'vous remarieriez jamais, mais… j'ai toujours manqué mon papa un p'tit peu.  T'étais là, mais pas assez proche… ya understand what I mean?”, Gabriel asked, switching to English again, and Marc Dantan nodded, wiping a stray tear from the wrinkly corner of his eye.

“I understand parfaitement, Gabriel, et j'suis désolé pour ne pas essayer plus fort… m-mais tout ce que j'veux dire, c'est que j'avais jamais été fâché ou désillusionné ou triste de te voir avec des gars et pas des filles.  Tes préférences… t'en as jamais douté.  Et moi non plus,Gabriel.  Je t'aime comme t'es.  J'ai toujours t'aimé comme t'es.  N'changes jamais, je t'en prie… et n'cesse jamais à aimer comme le coeur ouvert, comme t'as toujours aimé.”, he admitted before looking fondly at Sam and adding in a warm tone: “I 'ope you and Samantha weel be as 'appy as I was with ta mère, que Dieu la garde et la chérit.”

“Oh, don’t worry, monsieur Dantan – papa – Gabriel and I fully intend to be every bit as happy as you and Marylise were.”, Sam reacted, gaining her a broad grin from her boyfriend’s father and a light kiss on the head from her boyfriend himself, who spoke to his father in a reverent tone.

“…Bien, n'importe le passé, on doit regarder au futur – et mon futur inclura toi, j'le jure… et Sammy, bien sûr.  Sans toi et Annabelle, ma vie serait putain vide; mais sans Sam, ma vie serait beaucoup plus pire que mourir.  …Alors, papa, j'veux bien te parler plus, mais on doit aller vers chez la base de nouveau, no matter how much I’d love to stay.  We promised Sam’s brother we’d fête le Nouvel An chez lui-”

“Ah, say no more, Gabri’!  Samantha, Gabriel, I weel let you pack een peace et tranquilité…”, Marc Dantan said lightly, sitting down in a chair and allowing Sam and Gabriel to devote themselves once again to the task at hand, though before they did so fully again, Sam gave her boyfriend’s hand a soft squeeze and spoke to him in a soft, warm voice.

“…I’m glad you and your father are parting on just as good terms as you’ve reunited.”  To her surprise, Gabriel squeezed her hand back and spoke with a broad, happy smile.

“Oh, even  _better_ terms, mon ange.  Even better terms.”, he reiterated a second later, in a half-whisper, as he finally managed to locate the sweater he’d been trying to find on one of the pillows of the sofa, making Sam grin and wink at Marc Dantan before fully setting her mind on the task at hand as well.

 

“Okay… this is it…”, Gabriel said a little sadly as he turned to his father.  It felt almost cruel that he had to say goodbye so abruptly of the man now, especially considering the fact that he’d only seen him again for those few days.  His father seemed to agree, or at the very least understand the sentiment.  “Papa-”

“Oui, Gabri’… j'te vois de nouveau la prochaine fois que t'as tes vacances?  Avec Samantha?”, Marc Dantan asked hopefully, causing Gabriel to chuckle softly.

“Papa, nous sommes pas même partis déjà et t'es en traîn de nous d'mander quand on revienne.”  Sam also smiled brightly, causing his father to look half-amused and half-embarrassed.

“Ah, taquines pas ton père bien aimé, Gabriel, c'est pas gentil d'toi… et c'est pas d'faux pas que vous me manquez déjà.  Ah, j'suis si heureux de t'avoir revu, Gabri’ – et, naturellement, d'avoir vu ta chérie extraordinaire, Samantha-”

“Oh, papa, ne dis pas telles choses, j'rougis…”, Sam said, indeed blushing softly though she smiled brilliantly at his father, speaking in a soft and utterly warm tone: “C'était vraiment joli d'avoir faire ton connaissance, c'est facile à voir d'ou Gabriel a reçu son beau regard et son charisma.”  Gabriel gave his girlfriend a swift hug and a soft kiss on the cheek to show how greatly he appreciated the compliment, after which he turned to his father, who again spoke up.

“Ah, Gabriel, ta p'tite femme est parfaite, ne la quitte jamais…  Oh, mais aussi agréable que c'était de te revoir si heureux, c'est franchement douloureux de t'voir partir de nouveau… il y a tant de quoi j'ai voulu t'parler mais j'ai pas eu la chance pour le faire; et il y a beaucoup des choses qui j'avais voulu t'demander, mais…”

“Ah, mais papa, c'est pas grave, t'as tout le temps du monde maintenant pour me parler.  T'peux m'appeler, jour et nuit, et Belle aussi. Pour me parler, pour juste entendre mon voix, pour tout partager avec moi d'ton jour, même pour me taquiner.”, he said with a wink, and his father smiled warmly before speaking in earnest again.

“Mais ton boulot… j'pense bien que tu peux pas emporter ton mobile avec toi dans ces batailles, n'est-ce pas?”  Gabriel nodded – even if he were allowed, his cellphone had become somewhat precious to him, even before it had become his means of communicating with his father and sister again.  It was his link to the outside world, no matter if his friends out there could be counted on one hand.  His father used that confirmation as his opportunity to speak up again: “Alors, donc, si j’t'appeles quand t'es au travail, j'peux pas te parler-”

“Ah, mais si t'vas au magasin ou si tu sortes le soir, j'peux aussi pas te parler, papa – mais si tu m'laisses une message…  J'aimerais bien te parler chaque jour-”  Sam grinned his way, nodding eagerly, and it was at that point that Gabriel realized something else: heaving a soft sigh, he turned serious again.  “Ah, papa, j'dois te dire la vérité – j'voudrais bien te parler chaque jour, mais j'ai aussi des obligations vers ma Samantha, j'dois-”

“ _Gabriel_ , don’t continue that sentence…”, Sam said softly, blushing mildly, which of course prompted his father to cast a wink his way, Gabriel noticed, prompting him to quickly speak on in English to assuage his girlfriend.

“Okay, okay, I won’t… oh, but papa, we should get goin’ now…”, he spoke softly as he watched the 'first call’ sign go up for their flight, causing Sam to nod ruefully and his father to sigh.

“…Ouais, j'veux pas que t'sois chez vous en retard… alors, donc… bon voyage, et au r'voir, mon cher fils-”  It was clear to Gabriel that his father was on the verge of tears, no matter how the man had already shed those that morning when he’d stood inside his living room talking about the past and how he felt like he’d failed him; and, if he was honest, he was holding himself back from crying as well, clenching his hands into fists and unclenching them slowly. However, as he meant to speak up, finally managing to swallow the sudden lump in his throat, he found Sam was ahead of him, her voice  _also_ conspicuously emotional.

“Dis pas 'au revoir’, papa… dis 'à bientôt’.  Et toi aussi, bon voyage.  Nous te faisons appel quand on soit chez nous de nouveau. …m-mais si nous ne partons pas maintenant-”  She halted when Gabriel threw his arms around his father and gave the man a tight, warm hug that the man effortlessly returned.

“Ah, t'me manques déjà, Gabri’, et toi aussi, Samantha… donc, à bientôt, et j'attendrai votre appel…”  The first step away from his father was hesitant, but then it felt like every step became both easier to take and more painful to think about, so Gabriel waited with turning around until they stood past the passport check desk and he saw his father still standing in the same spot, cheeks tearstained and hand instantly raised in a wave that he returned without any hesitation.  His father walked off to the exit doors slowly, turning around when he was there and waving one more time, still crying softly, before sighing and heading outside, prompting Gabriel to walk on as well.  It was only when Sam squeezed his hand encouragingly that he noticed he was crying as well.

“…It can’t be easy saying goodbye to your father just when you’ve seen him again… even more so when you’ve just had a talk with him that you should’ve had so many years ago…”, she said, which prompted a sad sigh from Gabriel.  It  _did_ feel like the talk he and his father had had, about why he’d reacted the way he had to his coming out, was long overdue.  And it was that notion, the mere thought that so many years spent disliking his father because of something that he hadn’t fully understood, that smarted all of a sudden.  Sam seemed to understand that as well, because she gently squeezed his hand a second time.  “But now you can start anew with  _no_ obstacles standing in your way.  I know saying goodbye is hard, but it’s inevitable.  You’ve got to move forward, no matter how much you want to keep looking back.  That’s the reason why your father still feels so strongly about what happened between him and your mother so long ago – because he keeps looking back.  What’s happened, has happened-”

“Sam-”, Gabriel said, instinctively feeling what she was about to bring up and wanting to spare her heart, but she shook her head vehemently and spoke the words anyway.

“-I mean, look at what happened in  _my_ life. Look at  _my_ parents, look at Michael.  Look at the utter  _shite_ I’ve suffered through because of them.  I had a choice back in that hospital – not between taking this job and not taking it, no, but a much more  _profound_ choice. I had the choice between living in the past and wallowing in my grief, or living  _now_ and making the most of what I still had…  Take it from me, Gabriel, mon âme, il n'y a que de la douleur et de la tristesse dans le passé, donc on doit regarder au futur dès maintenant.  Je t'en prie, mon amour…”, she said, squeezing his hand tightly again and looking him in the eye with clear grief and resolve, which got his heart aching for her – though her next words made that ache pale in comparison to the overwhelming love and comfort he felt: “I want you to focus on what’s most important now, and that is the fact that your father has just invited you to spend Easter here, with him – and the fact that you’ll be returning to our room on our base where we’ll spend a night in perfect solitude before Damien comes to pick us up tomorrow around two PM-”  Gabriel couldn’t help it: he promptly dropped his bags and swept Sam up in his arms, lifting her off the ground and spinning her around, making her give a single surprised yelp before smiling down at him so brilliantly that his heart felt like it’d explode if he didn’t press his lips to hers in a deep but infinitely tender kiss, so he did just that.  As some people wolf-whistled, however, he detached from her again, blushing softly and casting a few glares around at the people that had thought it necessary to interrupt their moment of public affection, to which Sam reacted by putting her hand on his arm.  “…Gabriel, don’t mind them… oh, I love you so, it’s  _astounding_ how I haven’t just  _exploded_ yet…”

“Mhm, save that for later, bien?”, he said softly as he picked the straps of his two bags again, grinning softly to himself.  His girlfriend had lifted his spirits again, making his sadness over having to say goodbye to his father seem distant and the joy of speaking to him over the telephone and arranging for them to come out this way again for the Easter holidays feel all the more important and close at hand.  “…Ah, mon ange, j'ai bien envie de toi maintenant…”, he admitted, causing Sam to grin even though she still blushed.

“Let’s save that for later, okay?  Let’s first get home.”

“And if the plane’s as good as empty?”, he asked, remembering how they had behaved out of necessity on the flight into Montreal airport; clearly his girlfriend remembered it too, if her deepening blush was any indication, and he half expected her to firmly talk the idea out of his head, but instead she bit her lip softly and whispered to him in passing.

“…Well, then you’ll just be very  _lucky_ , won’t you?”  His blood heated up in a flash, he found, and as she walked through the duty-free area, all he could focus on was the alluring sway of her hips and the promising smile on her features.

 

“…Oh, where  _is_ he…”, Sam sighed for what felt like the hundredth time, looking on her watch for what felt like the  _millionth_ time. “He said two PM, I’m positive-”

“Maybe he just had to gas up?”, Gabriel suggested, rubbing her shoulders soothingly before allowing his hands to idly linger on her upper arms as he teasingly added: “…Or maybe he had a hard time getting away from Katrin – she was gonna be there too, wasn’t she?”

“Oh, Gabriel…”, Sam sighed, though she had a hard time not smiling as well, finding it endearing to imagine her brother keeping going back for a kiss from his girlfriend, even if she knew that wasn’t what Gabriel meant at all – something that was further testamented by his next words, spoken right into her ear as he pulled her a little more tightly against himself.

“Mmm, if it were me, and you’d be there in the house with me, you wouldn’t leave the room…”

“ _Gabriel_ -”, she started, causing her boyfriend to grin and a very unsubtle shiver to run through her as he whispered heatedly into her ear.

“ _…and you wouldn’t_ wanna  _leave the room either…_ ”

“Oh, mon amour, you’re such a  _tease_ …”, she said with more fire in her voice than was strictly okay considering the fact that they were waiting for her brother to pick them up, causing him to grin and kiss her cheek a little remorsefully.

“I was just trying to get you to relax… j'suis désolé-”  Sam spun around in his hold and smiled up at him.

“Oh, don’t be  _sorry_ , Gabriel, I just meant it’s unfair of you to make me yearn for you so fiercely when there’s nothing either of us can do about it.  …And you did get me to relax.”

“Le seul que je veux, c'est que t'es détendue jusqu'au moment de retourner dans la bataille la semaine prochaine…  but I’m gettin’ kind of worried about Damien as well now.  I mean, it’s just… I wanna start our days over there.  See what kind of guest room he has-”  His somewhat distant grin had Sam smile and shake her head. To her, Gabriel had become akin to an open book, and she was able to read him with incredible ease.  Of course, if she was honest, she had to admit that he was so easy to read to her because she was also thinking the same thoughts as he was most of the time, especially now.

“You just want to know what kind of bed we’ll be sleeping in, and how much you’ll be able to get up to trouble with me.”, she said in a light tone, to which he reacted with a grin and an eager nod.

“Mais bien sûr – when it comes to you, troublemakin’ is all that’s on my mind.  Or, well, what  _other people_ would call 'troublemakin’’ – l'amour est belle chose, j'la cache pas. …Uh, side note…”, he started, causing Sam to laugh softly in earnest, shaking her head mirthfully.

“Now is a pretty lousy moment to start worrying about Damien knowing how much trouble we get in, Gabriel, mon amour… he  _knows_ , luckily – the fact that we’ve had to had our new quarters soundproofed to guarantee Dell and Grant any sleep is somewhat of a giveaway.”

“Oh, merde, Damien en sait?”, Gabriel ground out, prompting Sam to nod mirthfully.

“Il en sait, mon amour, et il n'a pas t'en parlé.  Il sait que je peux faire mes propres choix à moi – he knows that everything I get up to with you is my choice and that I’m perfectly capable of making choices like that by myself.  Besides, he can see we’re happy together, and he’s just… happy that I’m happy, I guess.  Just like I’m happy he’s happy with Katrin.  She’s a great woman – not that we  _talked_ much when we first met-”, she said, and Gabriel chuckled, just like she’d expected him to.  When she’d admitted that she had misbehaved with Katrin before Damien had even met her, he’d laughed loudly and had said that clearly she considered her brother’s girlfriend to be more than okay before wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her softly but very deliberately away from the other woman with a shy grin.  However, when she now continued, her words were sincere again: “-but she’s kind, warm, spirited and dedicated.  All things Damien is as well.  They fit together wonderfully well – oh, I’m happy for Dami…”, she sighed out, smiling softly when Gabriel pulled her into him and kissed the top of her head tenderly.

“J'pense qu'il sait bien que t'es heureux d'lui voir heureux.  And he’s just as happy seein’ you happy with me – otherwise he wouldn’t ever have invited me to  _his house_ , mon ange.  …So, uh, think he gave us a guest room close to his own room?  Because I don’t think I can take Damien glarin’ at me when I’m enjoyin’ breakfast-”

“Which reminds me, please tell me you’ve at least packed some pyjamas, love…”, Sam asked, still remembering Gabriel’s father and sister’s responses to when he’d shyly admitted that he hadn’t brought any pyjamas.  It was Marc Dantan’s generous offer of one of his own sets of nightwear to his son that got her to add with a broad smile: “…though your father’s pyjamas made you look very, very handsome…”

“Heh, t'as just aimé d’m'imaginer, aussi que toi-même, un peu plus vieux… t'as nous imaginé quelques années plus tard et encore plus amoureux.”, he teased, causing her to blush.  It was partially true, of course, especially after Lisette had admitted to having dreamt that they’d marry.  However, after a second of just smiling, she answered her boyfriend back in an equally teasing tone.

“Like you didn’t imagine it – and like you didn’t fully imagine me in a wedding dress after Lisette told us her dream…”

“More like imaginin’ gettin’ you  _out_ of that wedding dress, mais okay, t'as raison.  Guess we’re both eager for our mutual future, huh?”, he admitted, smiling at her and kissing her cheek before lending his lips gladly for the kiss she instigated, kissing her lightly and lovingly, his hand gently resting on her cheek with his thumb rubbing gently right next to her ear. “…Ah, que le futur sera  _merveilleux_ pour moi avec toi dedans…”  Just as he meant to speak on, he straightened, Sam was surprised to find, though the mystery as to why he did so was answered by his next words that coincided with the crunch of gravel behind them.  “…Damien?  Where… we didn’t see ya drive up here, man!”

“Oh, I drove up from the city, I wanted to surprise you both.”, Damien admitted, smiling broadly at Sam as she turned around to him.

“Surprise us how?”, she asked, looking past him and blinking.  “…And, uh, where’s your car?”

“…Well, about that… you should probably read this…”, he said, handing Sam a small, plain envelope with her name on it – Sam felt more than a little apprehensive accepting the envelope from him, but his smile told her that she didn’t need to be scared about the contents of the envelope.  Shakily, she read the contents of it softly, Gabriel leaning against her to read along over her shoulder, something she let him do for once.

“Dear Sam, after mum and dad tried a third time to have you collocated from abroad, I had their assets examined by a private investigator and filed a counter-claim against them for slander and defamation, suing them for exactly one third of their estate.  They got a pretty sum for selling the gas station, and even after their move to Antwerp in Belgium, they had a small fortune at their disposal.  My last business trip was not a business trip – I went to Belgium to sue them in Belgian court, and I won the case, proving sufficiently their malicious intent and their continued effort to slander you from abroad.  The judge awarded you the sum of…”  She faltered, re-reading the next words twice, biting her lip and  feeling incredulous.  It had to be a mistake, she was certain of it. “…Damien, this can’t be right!”, she said, growing pale, and her brother chuckled softly before speaking with a generous smile.

“It’s right.  Each and every penny.  Read on…”

“…the sum of one million three hundred and seventy-five thousand nine hundred thirty-one euros and seventeen cents-”

“ _Quoi?!_ ”, Gabriel all but exclaimed next to her, showing that he clearly knew the value in dollars of the sum the paper mentioned.  Sam, however, read on undeterred.

“-one third of their estate – and an additional five thousand euros for your medical expenses which, he argued, should have been borne by them instead of solely by you, considering the situation you were in and the fact that you’ve tried your hardest to save your brother.  I have taken the liberty of putting the money on a savings account after buying you a very luxurious gift.  Love, Damien.  …Damien, this-”

“Merry Christmas, Samantha…”, he said softly, cutting across her stammered reply, holding out a set of car keys and motioning behind him to a brand new and admittedly perfect-looking car standing behind him.

“Sainte Mère d'notr'espoir, you bought your sister a fuckin’  _car_ for Christmas?!”, Gabriel said emphatically, causing Damien to grin somewhat shyly and speak in a soothing tone.

“Technically  _our parents_  got her a car – and a gift of about two million dollars.  …So, I take it you like it, Sammie?”, Damien asked as Sam circled the car, her tone excited and emotional as she answered.

“Oh my god…  it’s automatic gear and everything… a Chevrolet Spark… I love cars like this!  …oh my god, it’s got MP3 player functionality!  …Air conditioning, how handy is that!  …Hah, a cup holder with a can of JumpStart pre-equipped – I’ll be sure to thank Katrin for that generous gift…”  She walked back to her brother and embraced him, squeezing him hard, and the tears running over her cheeks spoke volumes on her feelings.  “Dami, I love you to bits, brother…  No one’s ever done something like this for me, not even mum and dad…  This…  I just can’t-”

“You don’t have to say it, Samantha, I know.  And it’s all I could do for you, in between my job and making the preparations for Christmas.  I got a top-notch solicitor to take the case back in Belgium and he really did all of the work, honestly.  …Now, do you think you could drive us all to New York?”

“Oh, yes, yes, of course!  Nobody’s taking these keys from me again! …Oh, my  _heart_  is  _racing_ …”, she admitted, prompting a grin from Gabriel, who added to her sentiment effortlessly.

“Ah, mais c'est normal, ça!  You got a damn  _car_ as a Christmas gift – by the way, Damien,  _thanks a lot_ for  _upstagin’_ me-”

“Oh, mon amour, you give me a lot more than Damien did – a car is just a car, your heart is… precious, and priceless.”  That got her boyfriend to grin once again and it promoted her to speak up again in a more airy tone.  “Anyway,  _let’s get this show on the road-_ ”

“Oh god, suddenly I regret having given you those keys.”, Damien instantly reacted; Sam felt like reacting angrily for a second until Damien nudged Gabriel with his elbow and spoke in a teasing tone to him: “Pray to God for strength and mercy, Gabriel, I’d imagine you’ll need  _both_ with Sam at the wheel.”

“Just for that, I ought to let you  _walk_ back to New York, brother dearest… but I guess I’m in a forgiving mood…  Okay, you two had better not gossip too much about me as I put the fireworks in the boot of the car.”, she said as she moved off back to the door of the compound – she’d let the boxes stand inside while she and Gabriel were waiting, thinking that the crisp winter air wouldn’t do them much good.  As she stood at the door, she turned around again, the feel of the car keys –  _her own_ car keys – in her hand making her feel elated, and she could see Gabriel and Damien enjoying a leisurely conversation that had both men smiling, which further added to Sam’s sense of deep inner satisfaction.  Grinning broadly, she opened the door and took the stack of fire-retardant blankets to first make sure that the boxes of fireworks wouldn’t be damaged in any event.


	39. Like dreaming of angels (and leaving without them) (Warm Holidays part 5)

The closer they came to New York, Gabriel found, the more apprehensive he was becoming.  Not because of Sam’s driving, because Damien had admitted that she was driving especially carefully, and also not because of the fireworks that occasionally rattled in the back… and definitely not because of Sam’s hand occasionally wandering to his upper leg, which had earned them a quarter of an hour’s worth of teasing from Damien the first time his girlfriend had done that – in fact; the occasional touch of her slender fingers on his leg, enticing though it would be in any other situation, was the only thing that kept him from freaking out and panicking outright.  Sam seemed to realize it as well – that, or she’d felt the tension in his leg, he mused – because she spoke up soothingly.

“We’ll be there soon, mon amour.”  Quickly, Gabriel cast a nervous look at the backseat, where Damien sat: Sam’s older brother lay slumped against the door on his side, head resting loosely against his seatbelt and his expression serene and relaxed, proving he was fast asleep, which in turn led to him answering Sam in an earnest but hushed reply.

“Yeah, well… that’s kind of what’s makin’ me nervous, Sammy.”, he admitted – seeing her slightly questioning look, he elaborated: “…Well, this is the first time I’m visitin’ anywhere from the base – and before ya say ‘what about your dad and your sister’,  _that doesn’t count,_ I was able to make do with ton chaleur et ton amour – and it’s someplace  _important_ because this is your brother’s home we’re goin’ to-”

“Are you afraid you’ll behave badly and get kicked out?”, Sam asked, causing him to shake his head.

“Afraid I’ll… oh, I don’t know… it’s probably just a silly thing, to be afraid-”  He halted when Sam gave him a full second’s undivided attention, taking her eyes off the empty road ahead of them to fix him with her gaze as she spoke up.

“Being afraid is not 'just a silly thing’, Gabriel, it shows us what we stand to lose… so tell me, what are you afraid of losing?”

“Pretty much everything.”, he admitted in a half-whisper, before licking his lips and adding a little more loudly: “But mostly your respect… and  _control_ …” He half expected Sam to ask him what he meant by it, but once more she showed that she was completely attuned to his mind and she nodded softly and solemnly, which in turn led to him continuing in a muted tone: “…I’m in control of my urges now, but… but what if I lose control?  What if I end up pullin’ a stupid fuckin’ stunt in your brother’s house?  You  _love_ Damien, and if he’d be angry with me, you’d-”

“I’d stick by your side, Gabriel, and tell Damien that you didn’t mean for anything to go wrong and anyone to get hurt.”, Sam said, to which Gabriel chuckled somewhat gratefully.

“I meant 'you’d be stuck in a pretty shitty situation and I don’t ever wanna put you there’, but thanks for the reassurance, mon ange… N-no, but what if?”, he asked nervously, and Sam now rubbed her hand soothingly over his left upper arm, resting over his sweater and the bandana underneath a second before continuing.

“ _If_ you happen to lose control – and that’s a very big 'if’ because you’ve been perfectly in control even throughout Thanksgiving and the running-up to Christmas… and that was also a very stressful situation back then.”

“Ah, don’t remind me…”, he said, shaking his head to dismiss the thought of those days, where he’d been upset over something as stupid as Sam wanting to protect him from being disappointed.  “T'avais raison… I mean, ya were right back there.  And I was a fuckin’  _moron_ bein’ upset at ya.  …But don’t forget your promise, mon ange-”, he said lightly, smiling a little again, something that got Sam to smile as well as she replied quickly.

“I haven’t forgotten it yet, mon amour, and I doubt I ever will… we’ll call the company right after the holidays and-”  Suddenly, she went quiet and checked her rear-view mirror, groaning.  “…There’s a New York state trooper car right behind us, it’s been there since we’ve crossed the state border…  Damien?  Dami?”  Gabriel turned in his seat to see little to no response coming from Sam’s brother – he already anticipated her next question and gently reached for the man’s leg, pushing it lightly, jostling him enough to prompt a groan from him.

“Myeah? Wasn’t sleeping…”, he said even though it had been clear that he’d been fast asleep – Gabriel grinned for a second before speaking in earnest.

“There’s New York state troopers tailin’ us and Sammy’s getting a li'l nervous-”, he said, allowing Sam to take over from him the next second.

“Did you bring a copy of my New York State Pyrotechnical license?”, she asked, and Damien nodded.

“It’s in the glove compartment.  The paperwork for your car is in there as well: and before you asked, I  _triple-checked_ and it’s all there.”

“'Course it is.”, Gabriel said, meaning to add that he couldn’t believe that a shrewd man like him would forget anything, but right then the state troopers decided to signal them to pull over and Gabriel felt a different kind of tension overtake him – tension that translated from Sam to him, he admitted, because his girlfriend looked anything but thrilled at being pulled over.  Quickly, she lowered her window.

“Hello, officer, what may I help you with?”, she asked amiably – the fear that was in her eyes somehow didn’t translate to her voice, which was more than enough reason for him to pat her knee soothingly.

“Ma'am, would you mind openin’ the trunk of your car?  We’re conducting an end-of-year sweep for illegal fireworks.”, the first of the policemen said – the other stood behind their car, writing down their license and registration plate for looking up their information, probably, Gabriel mused – to which Sam reacted with a groan and a look at the policeman.

“Okay, but just as a heads-up, I  _have_ fireworks with me, and by your standards it’s probably even more illegal than your usual fireworks, but I am a licensed pyrotechnician-”

“You, miss?”, the officer said softly and disbelievingly, to which Gabriel reacted a little overly snappishly.

“Hey, mister, careful there, someone could think you’re bein’ disrespectful to my girlfriend.”  The police officer narrowed his eyes and meant to react when Sam beat the man to it.

“Oh, ne t'inquiètes pas, mon amour, he wasn’t being disrespectful, he was probably just amazed that someone of my age can already be a licensed pyrotechnician.  …Officer, I have a copy of my New York State License in my glove compartment, am I allowed to take it out first?”, she said, to which the man nodded slowly, keeping a nervous eye on Sam’s hands as she reached for the glove compartment and then relaxing again when she pulled out a paper that bore an official-looking seal.  Handing it to the  officer, she spoke softly: “It should have a subsection for the transport and storage of pyrotechnical materials-”

“Ah, yes, I see it here, ma'am.  …Samantha Rosa Tennant?”, he asked, and she nodded, which prompted the policeman to speak on: “Got an ID on you?”

“Wait, my driver’s license…”, she said, moving her hand to her purse and pulling her wallet from inside, from which she then took her driver’s license, handing it to the man.  He looked it over, then glanced her over, and finally nodded, handing her back the driver’s license and the copy of the pyrotechnical license.

“Okay, then, miss Tennant, let’s see those fireworks…”  She opened the trunk of the car, at which point the other policeman lifted the lid and then whistled appreciatively.

“Well, Ben, this is a catch for the books – looks like half the New Year’s fireworks for Times Square are in here!  Man, this stuff is  _display grade_!”

“That would be because miss Tennant  _is_ a pyrotechnician-”

“Wait, the li'l wispy one drivin’ the car?”, the other man said, which got Gabriel to groan.  Fortunately, the first policeman seemed to remember his earlier snappish remark and he patted his colleague on the arm.

“Yeah – miss Tennant is a licensed pyrotechnician, fully authorized to transport fireworks and to give pyrotechnical displays.  Which is what she’s gonna do, I imagine.”  That made Gabriel snort and it even caused a mild look of disbelief to cross Damien’s features.  The two men had to be the most incompetent state troopers he’d ever seen.

“ _Sheesh…_ ”, the RED pyro whispered, casting a furtive look at the men to see if they could hear him as he added: “With guys like these, there’s not much hope for the police force of New York…”  From the look of it, Damien didn’t seem to disagree, and Sam was outright holding back mirthful chuckles.  Then, however, one of the men cleared his throat and walked back to Sam’s window – his girlfriend had adopted a more serious expression again.

“…Okay, miss Tennant, looks to be in order – well, not that we  _know_ any of the safety procedures for transporting fireworks, but looks like you took twenty different precautions to make sure you get 'em where you want in one piece…  Can we ask ya where you made these?”, he said, and she nodded.

“I work for Builders League United in Louisville, Illinois-”

“W-wait, seriously?  I’m a long-time fan of BLU!  Maybe I even saw you fight! Hey Dennis!”, the man called to his partner, who had just closed the trunk of her car again, causing the man to look up with a surprised expression.  “Miss Tennant works for BLU!”

“…Holy shit, I  _knew_ I knew that name from somewhere!  H-hey, the guy sittin’ next to her in the car, he  has gotta be that RED boyfriend of hers then, Dante! You saw them fight at my place, man!  …Oh man, my kids ate the love story up-”

“It’s more than just a story, sir, it’s the truth.  Gabriel  _is_ my boyfriend and we  _are_ together despite our teams’ pressure.”, Sam said mildly, her hand going to Gabriel’s almost automatically, causing the two  policemen to grin.

“Wow… must be so hard fightin’ all the time when you’re in love… riskin’ death every day…  H-hey, uh, would you maybe give us autographs?”, the first policeman asked, with the second one eagerly nodding in agreement, causing Gabriel to shrug.

“Sure – d'you want me to sign 'Dante’ or with my full name?”, he offered, and the policeman pondered the question for a while before answering shyly 'Dante’.  The second man had by then produced two copies of the fan magazine of BLU, bearing their picture on the cover.  Gabriel flourished an autograph on both of them, handing each one over to Sam afterwards, who wrote her name and then drew a small flower next to it both times, making the two policemen grin as she handed them magazines back to them.

“Tell your children that they can always write to the magazine – the good people there will send it on to me, and I’ll send them back a note.”

“Thanks, miss Tennant – for the autographs and the offer to write back to my kids.  Well, you’re good to go, I guess, but, uh, me and my partner were just wondering where you’ll be doing your display.”

“Newburgh. In the backyard of my brother’s home.  He lives on a hill near the river so the entire town’s going to see the display – if you happen to be from around there…”

“Nah, I’m from the city.”, the man – Ben, Gabriel remembered his partner calling him – said, but then he nodded towards his car, where the other officer had evidently gotten in again.  “…But Dennis lives near there, I think - and hey, I’ve seen the fireworks on Times Square, like, fifty times already, so who knows?  It’s not far from the city anyways-”

“An hour, I know, my brother makes the commute daily.  Or, well, he  _would_ if he could remember to  _wake up_ in the morning…”, Sam admitted, causing the police officer to chuckle softly and shake his head.

“Anyway, miss, you and your family have a safe trip.  And… good luck with the display.”

“Thanks, officer, a good day to you and your partner as well!”, Sam said, closing her car window again when the man walked off back to his car. She allowed the police car to leave first before pulling out onto the highway again.  Gabriel looked at her to see her bite her lip softly, clearly holding back laughter, which was enough to cause him to gently nudge her with his elbow.

“…C'est quoi, mon ange?”  She snorted softly and shook her head before relenting – whatever was funny, she clearly wanted to share with him and Damien.

“Just… it  _figures_ that those guys would be into our battles – and did you notice how I suddenly went from 'that wispy little one that drives’ to 'miss Tennant’?”  She giggled softly, which was enough for Gabriel to smile as well, shaking his head just like his girlfriend had before.

“Heh, yeah, they were your typical cop – all that was missin’ were the coffee and the donuts-”

“Oh, mon amour, then you’ve clearly missed the powdered sugar residue on the man’s service shirt and the coffee stains on his coat’s lapel…”, Sam reacted, and now Gabriel laughed in earnest, trying in vain to keep the volume of his laughter down in the confines of the small car.  Their short stop was already forgotten before they’d even driven another mile, and even Gabriel’s nervosity of before eluded him now, with the three of them laughing and talking with an ease that was inherent in a way to the winter holidays.

 

“…Mon dieu…”  Gabriel’s soft-spoken words sounded for what seemed the hundredth time as Sam opened the door to their bedroom for the following week, revealing the spacious and comfortable room she’d slept in as well when she was recovering from her reconstructive surgeries.  Of course she’d already known what Damien’s house looked like for years, so the sight of it didn’t awe her even half as much as it had the first time they’d driven up the steep driveway and she’d just  _stared hard_ at the mansion that Damien could call his own.  Gabriel’s home in Canada, though by no means humble and small, easily fit into Damien’s home twice, maybe even three times if she took into account that his driveway was nearly a mile long and his back yard could easily be big enough to play soccer in.  And to see her boyfriend in clear awe of Damien’s amassment of fortune made her at the same time nervous and a little happy – worried that Gabriel would think she was  _used_ to being pampered like this, and happy that Damien was doing well enough to wow a man that had surely seen it all and experienced everything. “…'your little corner of my house’, he said… j'sais pas qu'est-ce qu'il pense, but this is  _nowhere near_ 'little’-”

“Gabriel, mon amour, he doesn’t… he just wants to pamper me, that’s all.  He calls it 'little’ to make me feel more comfortable.  And to brag about his amassment of riches-”  It wasn’t much of a surprise to her to hear her boyfriend snort and roll his eyes.

“Yeah, well, you’re his sister, he shouldn’t have to brag to you – I mean, I never bragged to Belle about _my_ windfall.”

“Just like I didn’t brag to Damien about my new pay – besides, he knows what I’m making better than I do, I asked him when I was in revalidation and he told me the exact amount I’m making-”

“The amount ya  _were_ making, 'cause that’s gone up now that we’ve changed our evening routine from cooking for the connards of our team to doin’ what we do best. …Can ya believe Siegfried  _thanked_ me for his migraine medicine last week?”, he said before stepping into the room and looking around again, this time looking like he was properly appreciating it.  It was exactly what a guest room decorated by a single man would look like, Sam mused, shaking her head.  It was subdued enough – the walls were a very light dusty blue, which was the same color, albeit a little less light, of the bedsheets and the curtains, and the small bathroom adjoining the room was also in a similar shade of blue.  But unlike last time, the room looked cosier, all due to the details that had suddenly appeared throughout it, such as the matching toothbrush sets that stood on the bathroom countertop, or the small throw that lay over the back of the loveseat that stood in the room.  So absorbed was she in looking through the room now that she missed what Gabriel said completely.

“…I’m sorry, what did you say, love?”, she asked softly, blushing modestly, and Gabriel chuckled as he repeated his question.

“I asked, what’s on your mind?”  His words and the way he cast her a tender look made her smile as she answered.

“Oh, just… I… was just wondering how Damien suddenly got attention for  _detail-_ ”

“Pfeh, that wasn’t Damien, I’m bettin’.”, Gabriel said, winking at her as he elaborated while making a wide, room- and house-encompassing gesture.  “I mean, I noticed the moment we walked in here that this house is basically no longer just your brother’s.  It’s got 'Katrin Patterson’ all over it.  Same goes for that car of yours – that can of JumpStart?  Wasn’t your brother’s idea, but Katrin’s.  That’s what women do, ya know, put the finishing touches in men’s lives.  …And don’t tell me it ain’t true, you were doing the same thing at our house back in Montreal, mon ange.”, he quickly added, causing Sam to blush and realize that he was right.  She’d been rearranging things in his house almost constantly, half out of a genuine wish to make the house even more appealing and half to press her mark on the one thing Gabriel still possessed and thus the one that wasn’t already inherently their combined property.

“…Okay, yes, I can certainly understand why Katrin put some finishing touches in this room, a man’s bachelor house is like his heart, it needs a female presence in it.  …Well, I’m just happy that Damien’s happy. Did you see the way he kissed Katrin on the cheek when we’d just entered and she came in from the kitchen wearing that apron?  He blushed like a little school boy asking for his first ever kiss.”, she said, and her boyfriend snorted but didn’t speak, instead pulling her a little closer to kiss her on the cheek.  She gladly allowed him to, relishing in the warmth his proximity brought out.  Then, however, Gabriel decided on a change of mood – or, at the very least, his thoughts seemed to wander: his fingertips started idly drawing circles on her sweater, right over her hip, and he asked in an airy, casual tone.

“…So, did ya sleep in that same bed last time ya were here?”

“Yes, I did.”, she said, smiling up at him for which she got rewarded by another wink and the lewd follow-up question she had already half-expected.

“…And were you a perfectly behaved li'l Sammy back then, or did ya maybe misbehave in that bed, huh?  …A nice little fantasy to make it through the night?  A bit of imagination and some light-fingered stress relief?”, he teased, causing her to wink back and give her lover a broad, luxurious grin.

“I’d lie if I denied it, but who says that bit of imagination already featured you?”  Gabriel’s reply was to gently pull her even more tightly against him, ending her shoulder up pressed against his chest.

“Oh, t'peux pas le nier, mon ange, mon coeur… t'pensait de moi à ces moments, j'le sais, j'avais t'intéressé bien avant que t'étais redevenu aussi belle que t'es aujourd'hui.  Don’t try an’ deny it, the way ya kissed me before ya went off base said it all.  J'avait jamais été câliné comme ça, avec tant de désir et tant d'besoin… ah, mon ange, juste en penser me donne assez d'besoin de te faire soupirer mon nom tout silencieux, que juste nous deux et Dieu l'entendent… just thinkin’ of the way ya kissed me, the way you still kiss me to this very day-”  Sam couldn’t help it: Gabriel’s words were both tender and heated, both of which were enough to get her heart skip a couple of beats, which in turn got her to turn in her boyfriend’s embrace and pull him down enough for her to kiss longingly, something Gabriel readily indulged in.  Slowly, he loosened his hold on her to allow her to turn to him fully, at which point he pulled her against his body again as tightly as he could manage.  “…Oh, mon ange, it’s still long enough until dinner, et j'ai si,  _si_ besoin d'toi et de ton chaleur…”, he admitted breathlessly, causing Sam to grin indulgently up at him.

“Do you really want to risk it, mon âme?”, she asked teasingly, allowing her hands to slowly travel up his back, almost carelessly pulling his shirt up just a little as they went, to tangle in his hair so she could pull him back down towards her enough for him to hear her whisper out: “ _Because I’ll definitely risk it_.” He kissed her hard enough to make her lips ache slightly, though that slight discomfort fell away in the blaze that overtook her as Gabriel nearly lifted her off her feet while kissing her, groaning happily as she held onto him tightly.

“For you, I’d risk everything… ah,  _Sam_ , j'me sens brûlant de désir, c'est franchement honteux-”, he said, already gently pulling her along to the bed, something that Sam gladly allowed him to do since she’d been thinking about doing so as well – she interrupted him with a mild groan and words that were far more heated than his.

“There’s nothing shameful about our desire for each other, Gabriel – the only shameful thing is that others don’t understand how just one kiss of yours sets me ablaze with need, that the fire you inspire within me won’t die down ever again… what’s shameful is that no one seems to understand how my hunger for you is far too great to ever fully fade away…”  By the time she’d finished that statement, Gabriel had already gently but deliberately pushed her backwards onto the bed, causing her to have to push herself up to kiss him again, his hands already pulling her sweater and her undershirt off.

“Ah, mon ange de feu, que tu m'embrases avec tout ton être…”, he ground out as she quickly lifted the superfluous garments over her head, after which she mirrored his previous actions on her boyfriend’s sweater and shirt, slowly peeling them off his form in between shaky sighs as Gabriel pressed his lips lightly but still with heated demand all over the sensitive skin of her neck.  When he sat up to take off the offending items of clothing, she used his distraction to gently switch their positions over so she now sat over him, grinning down at him.  “Ah, no fair, no  _faaiiiiir…_ ”, Gabriel groaned out when she kissed down his neck in turn, his fingers nervously pawing at the clasps of her bra and getting nowhere.

“Ne t'inquiètes pas, mon amour, you’ll get your moment again, I just want to make sure that fire of yours is stoked nice and high – the more you long for me, the more intense it’ll be when we-  _oh my…!_ ” Gabriel’s sudden and surprising grabbing her waist hard before flipping them over again was enough to make Sam softly cry out, looking up at her lover in clear delight to find him looking down at her with an overtly ravenous look.

“You want intense, mon ange, mon désir?  Donc, j'te  _donne_ intense – forget whisperin’ my name, you’re gonna be cryin’ it out for  _all of New York_ to hear.”  The way he rolled his hips into her showed that it wasn’t just an empty promise: Sam found she had to bite her lip not to instantly indulge her boyfriend already, the friction of their jeans combined with the fact that she could still feel very clearly how aroused he was despite the utterly constricting fabric making sure her own desire burned all the more hungrily.  But Gabriel clearly wasn’t satisfied with her biting her lip: leaning down again to give her what would no doubt become the most obvious hickey he’d yet given her while rolling his hips even more forcefully into her, Sam found herself losing the battle and whimpered out his name a little more loudly than she’d reckoned.

“ _Gabrieeeeel…!_ ”

“Oui, comme ça, dis mon nom comme ça, comme si on est tout seul sur le monde…”  She could feel his lips on the skin of her neck, around and over the bruised skin, causing her to moan softly and push her hips up right into his, causing him to curse emphatically and kiss her again with even  _more_ ferocity, and-

“Sam, Gabriel, do you-  _Oh shit, s-so sorry!_ ” Katrin’s voice came from the doorway, and before either she or Gabriel had the chance to say anything, the door was shut again and they could already hear her running footsteps die away again.  For a second or two, Sam and Gabriel looked at one another, and then they both sighed simultaneously, though Gabriel was the first who spoke again.

“…Merde, I thought we still had enough time…  Didn’t they say it was at least an hour until dinner?”

“Y-yeah, but maybe she just came to ask if we liked the room or something…”, Sam said, sighing softly before kissing Gabriel on the cheek: if there was any residual fire left in him for the moment, it certainly didn’t show in the way he kissed her on the cheek in return, showing that the interruption had instantly extinguished the flames they’d managed to kindle in between them.  However, that still didn’t stop him from looking her over tenderly, and his sigh the next moment showed that he felt at least sorry that she was left unfulfilled.

“…Alors, let’s get ourselves decent again and head downstairs.”

“Okay… oh, I’m sorry too, Gabriel, I should’ve remembered to lock the door or something-”

“Nah, it’s… we got a li'l carried away.  …Ah well, let’s hope it won’t be too awkward at the dinnertable.”, he said optimistically, and Sam rolled her eyes.

“If it’d been  _Damien_ , then it would be awkward.  …I’m still sorry.  You were making promises that I certainly didn’t mind. Tonight we’ll lock the door just to be on the safe side-”

“Oh, you bet we’re doin’ that – j'ai d'la peine à te laisser maintenant, but if we keep goin’, we might as well not show our faces again tonight. Not to mention Damien might murder me.”, Gabriel said, causing Sam to sigh and shake her head, though she didn’t comment anymore.  It’d be a little superfluous for her to tell her boyfriend that Damien wouldn’t dare touch him since he was over a head taller, just as she felt like it would serve no purpose for her to say that she longed for Gabriel just as much as he pined for her – her fellow pyro’s knowing smile showed that he was well aware of both facts, and his gentle kiss of her forehead transmitted that even more firmly into her mind.  They walked down the stairs and then through the long hallway until they found Damien and Katrin sitting in the sofa watching television.  Instantly, when she saw them, Katrin blushed, and Damien looked in confusion from his girlfriend to Sam and Gabriel and back again before sighing and shaking his head with a vague and mildly embarrassed grin.

“…I see.  I suppose you’ll lock your door next time you’re 'indisposed’?”

“Oh, Damien, don’t make it sound like we were committing a sin!”, Sam said with a mild blush of her own, though Gabriel’s answer to her brother made her smile broadly.

“Yeah, well,  _I_ suppose Katrin’s gonna knock on our door next time she comes up to tell us dinner’s ready – I mean, seriously, ya could’ve saved everyone here a lot of energy if you’d knocked on our door first.”  Katrin’s blush deepened and she neatly buried her head against Damien’s shoulder, who wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held her close, casting a slightly exasperated look at Gabriel which fortunately withered away completely when Sam spoke.

“Gabriel’s right, Dami’, Katrin, you ought to knock on the door if you’ve got guests staying over.  Katrin’s lucky we were still somewhat decent-”

“You mean Katrin was lucky you still had  _any_  clothing on.”, Damien guessed accurately, though he moved to the next subject in the same breath: “…Anyway, would you like a little snack before dinner’s ready?  And some wine to wash the awkwardness away with?”, Damien suggested, to which Gabriel fortunately reacted mildly and not with his usual over-the-top enthusiasm.

“Make that two times 'yes’ to both.”, Sam said, smiling encouragingly at Katrin and then casting a soft glance at Gabriel to see him wink at her and smile at her brother, who instantly started talking about how many different kinds of wine he had and asking Gabriel whether he knew anything about wine, making for an easy and light conversation that pushed away their previous embarrasment.

 

“…Hey, Gabriel, do you mind if I go and do a little last-minute shopping with Katrin?  If we want to have a lavish dinner on New Year’s Eve and a very elaborate breakfast on New Year’s Day, I’ll need a lot more than toast, butter and one carton of fruit juice – it’s clear Katrin visits nowhere near often enough, brother dearest, your refrigerator is emptier than a starving man’s stomach.”  Gabriel looked up from his book to see Sam standing in the doorway, smiling at him: as always, he instantly smiled back, his thoughts already off his book in favor of drinking in how great his girlfriend looked. She wore the fluffy white sweater again, but in Damien’s pale-colored interior it made her look all the more bright and delectable.

“Heh, no, I don’t mind, have fun shoppin’ with Katrin-”

“Don’t buy the store empty!”, Damien joked, to which Sam snorted and winked at Gabriel quickly before speaking up, warning him that her next words were spoken jokingly instead of in earnest.

“Aww, and I was just planning on buying us champagne and oysters-” Gabriel had to bite his lip hard enough to smart as Damien instantly flared up, his temperament clearly comparable to Sam’s in that respect.

“ _Lord spare us_ , Samantha, nobody in this house needs oysters!  You don’t even eat them – and before you say 'Gabriel can have my portion too’, I sincerely doubt  _he_ needs them  _either_ , what with the way you didn’t appear for breakfast this morning until an hour and a half after we woke you up!”  That last mention was too much: Gabriel laughed so hard that his stomach smarted within a matter of seconds, and Sam happily joined in, with even Katrin, who had wrapped an arm around Damien’s shoulders, joining in with some soft giggles that somehow became her.  “Oh yes, sure, laugh at me all you want…”, Damien said huffily, though he grinned softly by that time.  “…but please, promse me you won’t buy oysters.”

“I won’t buy oysters.”, Sam said, putting on her coat and tiptoeing over to Gabriel to give him a light and tender kiss that had him smiling broadly, not caring that the page indicator fell from his book while she did so.  “But about that hour and a half, my dear sweet brother, you did wake us up  _twice_ this morning.   It’s not fair that only  _you and Katrin_ get to enjoy yourselves.”  Instantly, Damien blushed and acquired a self-satisfied look that had Gabriel raise an eyebrow in amusement.

“No smart comebacks, Sam, I think he ain’t sorry.”

“Hmph, you’ve got that right, Gabriel.”, Damien admitted, shaking his head and turning to Katrin.  “Don’t be too long, okay?  I was hoping we could watch that movie I told you about together this afternoon.  All of us, I mean.”, he added, giving Sam a forgiving look that she answered with a broad smile.

“We’ll rein ourselves in just for that.  …Okay, Katrin, are you ready? Got the shopping list?”

“Yes, and yes.”, the older woman said, smiling brightly as she waved at Damien before adding in a conspiratory half-whisper that was  _meant_ to draw Damien’s attention, Gabriel knew: “…And I’ve managed to wheedle my way into having Damien trust me with his credit card, so if we pass a nice little shop on the way back here and we get  _sidetracked_ -”

“Katrin, I didn’t give you my card so you could splurge on… on…”

“Word of wisdom here, Damien,  _don’t finish that sentence_ or she’s gonna splurge on whatever you mention an’ then some just to show ya up.”, Gabriel said matter-of-factly while he pretended to still be immersed in his book, gaining him a fond, broad grin from Sam, a wink from Katrin who clearly appreciated his input, and a faked heavy groan from Damien.

“They  _all_ conspire against me now… oh, well, I suppose, while the ladies indulge in their shopping, you and I can spend some time talking, maybe smoking a cigarette or two since you both don’t smoke-”, he said to Gabriel, smiling mildly, which got Sam to sigh and speak up.

“Okay, okay, we’ll give you two enough time to make it through your pack, Damien – I thought you’d quit again after I was released from the hospital, by the way.”, she said a little accusingly, which got an honest bashful blush out of her brother and which got Gabriel chuckling lightly until his girlfriend walked over to him to kiss him gently on the cheek and then ever so lightly on his lips.  “… _Behave_ with Damien, don’t let me and Katrin walk through that door to find one of you passed out on the floor.  Or both.”, she added for good measure, to which he nodded dutifully and then waved her off, turning to Damien only when the sound of Sam’s car driving down the driveway died away into the distance.  “…So, you wanted to talk?”, he asked, and Damien nodded.

“Well, not 'talk’ talk, just… a little conversation.  Last time we met, it was… well, I  _had_ to be the protective big brother and you  _had_ to be the nervous new boyfriend, but I’d like to get to know you better now that we’re all relaxed around each other.  Or as relaxed as we’ll ever be, at least.”, he admitted, looking Gabriel over.  “You… I hope you don’t take offense in my saying it, but you have the air about you of a grizzly bear that woke up from his hibernation one month too early.  Except when Samantha is with you, then you look… well, then you look  _her_ age and not  _our_ age. You and her, you’re great together.  She has never been more happy, not even when she still had her previous job, and you look like a man reborn – it’s easy to see that your relationship makes the both of you infinitely better than you already were…”  He then sighed and motioned for Gabriel to follow him to the door leading to the patio, where it was still nice and warm despite the soft dusting of snow that lay on the grass.  In there, Gabriel wasn’t surprised to find that a small drawer on an end table hid a packet of cigarettes and a lighter – he bit his lip slightly and looked pointedly away when Damien lit up, causing the other man to blink.  “…Does that unsettle you?”

“Well, no, but… well, I was talkin’ to Sammy yesterday on the drive over here that I’m a little worried that I’d do something stupid that could end up with you kickin’ me out of your house-”, he started nervously, only for Damien to shake his head and pat him on the shoulder.

“I would never kick you out of my house, Gabriel, not for something you can’t help!  I appreciate that you’re worried, but you needn’t be, it’s okay, you’re clearly in control of yourself.  Otherwise you wouldn’t worry about it.  …Now come on, I didn’t come out here just to smoke.”

“Oh, ya got ulterior motives?”, Gabriel said, to which Damien’s first answer was an emphatic shrug before he spoke again.

“Yes, I’d like for us to talk as well.  Contrary to popular belief, men  _can_ multitask.” He then grinned and sat down, motioning for Gabriel to do the same opposite him.  “…So how was the visit to your father and your sister?”

“Ce s'rait magnifique… it was amazing, man, seein’ them again, talkin’ to them again… seein’ them just instantly love Sammy…  I could’ve sworn it was like she’d been made for the moment when she first set foot into my house, man, it was… j'peux pas le décrire.”  Then, he laughed lightly and added with no small measure of fond amusement: “…Et j'ai rencontré mon neveu et ma nièce pour la première fois.  David, son fils, est dix ans – il doit être né un p'tit peu avant que j'me suis envolé vers ici – et sa fille Lisette est quatre.  Ils sont des enfants parfaits, j'le jure.”

“Lisette… your sister named her daughter after your mother then?”, Damien asked, and Gabriel contemplated that for a second before nodding slowly.

“Oui, c'est vrai.  Lisette’s named after Marylise, ma chère mère.  Mais c'est… chouette.  I mean, that’s a great thing.  My mom didn’t leave behind all sorrow, she left behind a legacy.  I… before this year, I never saw that.  I… Sam opened my eyes for that-”

“No, Sam just took away the blinded glasses from in front of your eyes, Gabriel, you always knew that your mother left behind good things as well.”, Damien reacted mildly, fixing him with a smile and a fond look as he continued: “Just like Sam seems like she was made for that first second in your house is just proof of how much you love my dear sister.  …Now, Gabriel, what would you say to a game of chess while the ladies are out shopping?”, he suggested, and the pyro blinked.

“Chess? …Uh, okay… didn’t play that for… hell, must’ve been nine an’ a half years ago that I last played.  I warn ya, I’m probably shit at it, but sure.”, he admitted, causing Damien to chuckle.

“Somehow that won’t matter – I regularly play my colleagues in between meetings but I’ve never managed to win a single game, so I daresay quality will beat quantity in this case.”  He opened the drawers again and took out a small wooden chess set, clearly the one that regularly travelled with him judging by the wear and tear it exhibited, and he set the board up in a matter of heartbeats. “…Okay, let’s see your opening move.”, he said, motioning for Gabriel to go ahead and take the white, causing the pyro to shake his head.  Giving him the opening move could be construed as either apprehension of his prowess or courtesy – he decided to go with both and picked up the knight on the left-hand side and move it so it stood in front of the pawns.  “…Heh, it figures you’d go for the dangerous opening move… well, okay, let’s see how it goes.” Pretty soon, Gabriel was pushed into the defensive again, and for the longest time his aggressive opening move was the only danger he posed, but he got into the flow of the game more and more as he proceeded, and it didn’t take long for him to figure out that Damien’s style, though well-balanced between offensive and defensive moves, left ample opportunities for him to subtly work towards a victory, opportunities that he used without betraying his endgame. When it came down to it, however, he grinned at Damien and shook his head, letting his hands rest on the surface of the small end table.

“Damien, man, I’ve won.  You can move either your bishop or your knight but any way ya move it leaves the door wide open for me to check your king.  If ya move your queen, it’s even worse.  Ya want a  remise?”, he asked, and Damien’s expression went from focused to surprised slowly, looking over the board and clearly playing out the suggested moves before sighing and shaking his head.

“…It was a trap and I walked right into it, am I right?”, he muttered, to which Gabriel shook his head mildly.

“It wasn’t so much a trap as ya let me pick apart your defenses slowly but surely… but you played good, man.  I… this is actually the first time I’ve played a board game like this in… well, in nearly ten years.”, he admitted, giving Sam’s brother a glad look.  “Merci pour le suggestion, Damien.”  He looked outside – or rather, he meant to look outside, but a sound behind him caused him to turn around and see Sam and Katrin stand in the doorway snickering as quietly as they could.  “…C'est quoi, ça?”, he mildly teased the two women, causing Damien to turn around as well and smile just as broadly as he was.  “Standin’ there laughin’ at me and Damien, ou quoi?”

“We weren’t laughing at you, per se…”, Sam said, to which Gabriel snorted, rising from his chair and walking over to Sam to wrap an arm around her lazily and kiss her on the cheek, which in turn caused her to amend her statement: “Okay, we’ve been standing here for well over five minutes and  _neither_ of you noticed us, you were so caught up in the game, so maybe we  _were_ laughing at you a tiny little bit… but it was funny seeing you all concentrated like that.  Normally you only get that look on your face when you’re working in the pharmacy making both of our teams analgesics-”

“Ouais, donc, j'étais concentré sur ce jeu d'échec… so what if I was focused on that?  It was only to pass the time until you an’ Katrin returned…”, he admitted, gently nuzzling Sam’s cheek to which she responded, as she always did, with a mild blush and a whisper in his ear that sent his heart racing just a little more.

“ _…You look so incredibly handsome when you’re focused, mon amour…_ ”

“T'es une rêve, mon ange-”, Gabriel said, intending to kiss her lightly to alleviate the sudden ache in his heart, but then Damien cleared his throat behind the two of them and remarked to Katrin in a clearly teasing and mild tone.

“Looks like we’ll have to watch that movie alone, Katrin, darling…”

“Oh,  _come off it_ , Damien, we weren’t thinking of ditching that movie…”, Sam reacted, her arms crossing and her tone mildly offended but mockingly so, a feat that was betrayed by the self-satisfied grin on her features.  “…Alright, let’s watch that movie before Gabriel and I decide to terrorize you anyway instead-”  When Damien got up so hastily that he nearly knocked over the end table, Gabriel laughed lightly and shook his head, stepping aside to allow the man passage back inside before following him together with Sam, still chuckling as they walked back into the living room.  He felt warm on the inside, warm and totally relaxed knowing that, just as his father and Annabelle had accepted Sam readily into their lives, Damien and Katrin had accepted him.


	40. You're the only one who lights me up (like I'm glowing in the dark) (Warm holidays part 6)

“…Katrin, do you think you can field the dishes by yourself?”, Sam asked as the four of them sat leaned back easily in their chairs after the elaborate dinner.

“I can certainly try – and I’m not alone, fortunately.  Damien and Gabriel can help me-”

“I can’t help anyone, I  _can’t move_.”, Damien groaned, shaking his head slowly and patting his stomach, which in turn got Katrin to speak.

“Well, you’ll have to move somewhere during the evening or you won’t see Sam’s fireworks – the dishes will be waiting for you then.  …Are you ready for the setup then, Sam?”, she asked, and Sam nodded. She  _felt_ ready, even if she still had to do some last-minute checks that she was positive would come up in perfect order.  It seemed to translate in her smile, because her brother and Katrin gave her happy looks in return and Gabriel looked at her even more fondly.

“Oh, I am never  _not_ ready to set up a display.  I still need to check the local rain forecast and light a little test flare I’ve added to my batches of fireworks, to see if the quality isn’t compromised-”

“Hell, I think I maybe need to write that down.”, Gabriel said, looking around hastily for a pen or pencil and paper, but Sam smiled kindly his way and shook her head.

“We’ll do plenty of this together as soon as the Administrator gives her okay, mon amour, there’s no need to learn everything today. …You’re always allowed to come and watch me set up – but only if the dishes are done, otherwise Katrin and Damien get stuck with cleanup duty when they were kind enough to invite us over, and that’s not nice.”, she added, causing Gabriel to groan but not protest as he got up and motioned for Katrin.

“Well, ya heard mon ange – I can’t go out there an’ watch her work her magic if there’s still dirty dishes in here, so let’s solve part one of the equation!”  His enthusiasm made Katrin grin and slowly get up from her own chair.

“You see, Damien, sweetie?  Gabriel ate just as much as you and  _he’s_ not sitting in that chair completely paralyzed by a full stomach-”

“But he’s-”, Damien started, interrupting his own words with a groan as he clearly had been about to say that Gabriel was younger, but remembered that Sam’s boyfriend was in fact  _older_. “…He’s fitter!”, he amended with a pout that had Sam laughing just as heartily as Katrin and Gabriel.

“To hell with fitter, I’m thirty-five, man, and you didn’t eat  _that_ much… but okay, if you can stand the thought of me gossipin’ with Katrin about you in the kitchen…”  Sam blinked, intending to speak up and say that Damien wouldn’t respond to that suggestion – her older brother had never been one for participating in or caring about others talking behind his back – but clearly Katrin was an exception to the rule, or he was afraid that Katrin would tell embarrassing stories about him or the both of them; Damien rose from his chair with remarkable speed considering that all he’d done was groan or speak softly since they’d enjoyed their dessert which had been white chocolate sponge cake.

“Okay, I’ll help, I’ll help, just –  _oof –_  just give me a moment to get my  _limbs_ to cooperate-”  That got Gabriel to laugh softly and shake his head, winking at Sam to show his words were spoken teasingly as he spoke.

“…Well, once your legs decide to play nice again, Damien, me an’ Katrin are gonna be in the kitchen gossipin’ away about what  _really_ happened after the first date-”  Damien’s cheeks moved straight from slightly pinkish to near-purple in a fierce blush, showing that whatever had happened after the first date was not the kind of story he intended anyone apart from himself and Katrin to hear about – and of course Gabriel picked up effortlessly on that and teased further with a lopsided but warm grin on his features: “-promises to be a very, uh,  _interesting_ tale…”

“ _Katrin_ …!”, Damien tried, but his girlfriend was clearly on board with Gabriel’s intention to tease him because she spoke up in a light tone.

“Well, I suppose that it’s only right I tell you in reward for helping me wash those dishes instead of Damien-”

“ _Katrin, please!_ ”, Damien said again, sounding on the verge of breaking down in tears, which got Sam to laugh softly and pat her brother on the shoulder, deciding to end his misery.

“I’m sure Katrin won’t tell Gabriel things about you that you wouldn’t want her to speak about – but I’m surprised at you, Dami,  _sleeping with her after the first date_ -” She half expected her brother to not rise to those words, but Katrin clearly was a  _huge_ exception, because Damien instantly fired up again.

“ _You’re_ one to talk, Sammy, the first thing you and Gabriel did when you got to your room was  _get all over each other-_ ”

“Oh my, we may have started some serious infighting here, Gabriel.”, Katrin remarked teasingly, taking a step closer to Damien and gently rubbing his shoulders while she whispered something into his ear that got him to relax completely and sigh.  “…Sam, you go ahead and start setting up – and Damien can sit in the living room to relax and let his food digest a bit more, Gabriel and I can field those dishes with ease.  No gossiping about Damien.”

“Naturellement – Damien, man, I was just teasin’ ya before, okay?  But ya shouldn’t be ashamed about wantin’ your Katrin – hell, man, if she’s only  _half_ as precious to ya as Sammy is to me, you’re already a lucky bastard. …Mon ange, t'sera magnifique, j'le sais.”  Gabriel walking up to her and wrapping his arms loosely around her, leaning down for a light kiss, got Katrin to laugh lightly.

“…Maybe we can gossip about you and Samantha instead, huh, Gabriel?”, she said, causing a meek blush to erupt on Gabriel’s cheeks as he followed the woman into the kitchen, leaving Sam to walk out to the patio where the boxes of fireworks stood – on top of them lay her laptop, which she switched on to do her quick check of the weather forecast for the next twelve hours, finding that the night would be clear and dry.  Smiling, she started carrying the boxes outside and took out the flare in the bottom one, lighting it and then raising it instantly overhead as the small fuse on the outside carried inside and lit the contents, causing a bright blue glow to fall around her. Satisfied with the result, she started connecting the rigging that’d provide the spark for the electric detonation mechanisms of the fireworks, setting it up and testing it.

“…Okay, there’s two that don’t work and that I should check for a moment…”, she said to herself, digging through her supplies for a screwdriver but finding nothing, which prompted a groan from her.  “Oh  _god_ , I thought I’d taken my tools with me for this!  …Oh, well, nevermind, Damien probably has a screwdriver somewhere in the house, I’ll just go ask him…”, she muttered, already heading inside of the house again, instantly looking at the sofa as she opened the door into the living room again.  “Dami, do you-”

“Sammy, y-you’re back early!”, came the loud and conspicuously hasty reply from her right, which revealed Damien standing at one of the cupboards, turning around and hastily stepping away from that spot backwards, his arms behind his back.  “Are you all set up?”, he asked in an overly airy tone, but Sam shook her head.

“No – and what’s with all  _this_? Five minutes ago you make it sound like you’re weighted down by so much food it might as well be a millstone in your stomach… and now you’re fine and obviously hiding something from all of us?  That’s  _not_ going to fly, brother dearest.   _Speak up_.”

“B-but Sammy-”, he started, only for her to repeat her words with extra emphasis.

“ _Speak up_ , Damien,  _now_ , please.  Tell me or you’re telling  _Katrin_.”, she said, taking a tentative step towards the dining room door, behind which the kitchen lay – that got her brother to pale and hastily step back towards her, pulling her to the very corner of the living room.

“No, no… i-it’s… it’s this…”, he said, pulling a small box from his trouser pocket, causing Sam’s heart to seemingly freeze in her chest even before he opened it and revealed a thin gold band with a small ruby and sapphire alongside a slightly bigger and clearly sparkling diamond.

“…Oh my god…  _oh my god,_ Damien, you’re…  _seriously, are you…?_ ”, she asked, feeling overcome with emotion all of a sudden – her hand almost instinctively went to her heart as she waited for Damien’s confirming nod, which came admittedly fast as added proof of his resolve.

“Yes – I’ve been wanting to for a while now, ever since Thanksgiving and meeting her parents and her brother.  Ever since spending more than just a few days with her.  I’ve known her for a little under six months, with each new day showing me more and more clearly that she’s perfect, and I want nothing more than for her to be in my life permanently.  …A-and I thought ‘what better moment to propose to her than after Samantha’s fireworks display, which we both love seeing?’-  _ooph!_ ” The rest of his words got lost in the tight hug that Sam instantly enveloped him in, softly crying in happiness for him.

“Oh my god, Dami, I’m so… I am so happy for you!  You and Katrin are such a perfect pair, she is perfect for you, and – oh, I’m sure, so sure, that she’d never say 'no’ to you, not the way she kissed you this morning, not the way she whispered into your ear before… oh my god, I’m getting another sister-in-law-”

“Another?”, Damien asked, eyebrow raised, which caused Sam to blush lightly and look away, at her feet.

“W-well, uh, Annabelle, I mean, s-she kind of is my sister-in-law… and her children, Gabriel’s niece and nephew, kept asking us if we’d get married and I kind of didn’t say that we wouldn’t – you should’ve seen Gabriel’s face-”, she said, grinning softly, to which Damien shook his head and chuckled softly.

“You and children… you can’t disappoint them, can you?  …Well, I can’t pretend that I already see Gabriel as my brother-in-law, especially since you and him both seem utterly serious about one another-”

“Just as serious as you and Katrin, Dami.  W-well, minus the proposal, but we have to have _something_ to look forward to.”, she hastily said, feeling close to shedding tears of pure happiness again at her brother’s clear joy – Damien seemed to notice it as well, because he gently patted her shoulder and gave her a half-hug that she turned into a full, tight hug in a matter of a second.

“…She hasn’t said 'yes’ yet-”, he started, his voice muted and his eyes nervously fixed on the dining room door, from where Gabriel’s somewhat rowdy laughter issued, followed by something incomprehensible from Katrin that had another, though less rowdy, bout of laughter in reply from the tall pyro.  Sam nodded and spoke equally softly.

“That’s basically just a formality, Damien… a-anyway, uh, I came inside for a screwdriver-”

“Garage, top shelf next to the door, the blue box.  …A-and thanks.”, he added, sounding genuinely nerve-wracked and causing her to smile his way broadly and reassuringly.

“Oh, brother, this is  _huge_ , how could I  _not_ be overjoyed for you and Katrin?  …I’ll, uh, leave you to your nervous wasting away then.  …God, Katrin’s going to be blown away…”

“That’s kind of the effect I am going for, Sammy…”, Damien admitted – he still looked and sounded nervous, but his smile showed that he was more than ready to close his eyes and jump in blindly, and that got Sam to smile broadly at her brother before moving off to the garage, quickly taking the blue box and carrying it hastily outside, noticing Damien sitting in the sofa with a distant look in his eyes, his lips moving soundlessly.  As she walked outside again, another tear slipped past her guard, and she hastily reapplied herself to fixing the faulty electrical fuses for her fireworks in order to keep herself from betraying anything when Katrin would walk outside.

 

“…Soooo…”, Katrin said as soon as Gabriel had recovered from his raucous laughter of before, when she’d told him the story of why Damien had contacter her.  He’d known, of course, that Sam and Katrin had both been at that rave party in Melbourne, Australia, where they’d both been more than a little drunk and had misbehaved with one another – but he was surprised to hear that Damien had known and had  _still_ only looked at her good looks.  Never mind the fact that Katrin, without ever speaking the words to confirm it, had confessed to him that Damien and her  _had_ really slept together on their first proper date.  Then again, he mused absent-mindedly, he and Sam hadn’t exactly wasted time either, and they’d slept together  _before_ they’d gone on a proper date.  So focused was he on the residual warmth of the memory of how he and Sam had made up and started their relationship properly after their false start, that he’d missed Katrin’s question: when she looked at him in clear expectation, he blushed guiltily.

“Hmm?”, he asked, causing Katrin to laugh lightly and shake her head, pointing a finger at him in mock accusation.

“ _You_ , Gabriel, were thinking about Sam and about the way  _you and her_ behaved after  _your_ first date-”, she teased, to which Gabriel answered with a snort and a brutally honest retort.

“Yeah, well, me an’ Sammy slept together even  _before_ our first real date, and even before that we weren’t exactly perfectly fuckin’ behaved.  We…”  Suddenly, he cast a furtive look at the door before motioning for the woman to come a little closer, which she did.  “…Uh, jure-moi… swear to me that Damien won’t hear one peep from this, okay?  I don’t want him to think murderin’ me is necessary.”

“Heh, don’t worry, your secrets are safe with me.”, she said, at which point he blushed and looked at his feet.

“…W-well, the first night I met Sam, we were both drunk – her more than me, though – an’ we… kissed… and propositions were made… an’ she said 'go air-guitar your fireaxe stark naked, an’ take pictures, solemn promise to kiss that naked ass of yours goodnight every night’ and I, uh, kinda did that the next day.  And… and she  _returned the favor_  the next weekend.”  He expected Katrin’s burst of laughter before it even came, but when it died away and she wiped tears from the corners of her eyes, he had to admit that the words she added in response were not what he’d expected at all.

“Does she still?  Kiss your naked ass goodnight, I mean?”

“…Well, she’s moved on from my ass, but every now and then she still just kisses one buttock an’ gives me this grin as she says 'goodnight mon amour’-”, he admitted, which elicited a few last chuckles from Katrin before she asked the next question that was on her mind, bold and forward as she’d been ever since they’d first met.

“…Sooo, when’s she gonna be misses Gabriel Dantan?”

“Mais c'est quoi, vraiment  _tout le monde_ veut que j'la demande la main..  I mean, not that I don’t wanna ask her to be mine for the rest of our fuckin’ lives, but I want it to be 'cause we both want to, not because  _every-fuckin’-one_ keeps  _pressurin’_ us…”

“Hey, no pressure here, Gabriel, really… I just… you know, wanted to ask if you don’t got any plans yet to ask her.”, Katrin said softly, smiling at him disarmingly and causing Gabriel’s anger to flee him somewhat again, which in turn led to him sighing and nodding softly.

“…Yeah, I know… well, uh, no, I don’t got any plans yet.  Besides, it’s a little… I dunno, it feels a little fast.  I’ve only known Sammy for eight months, really – it feels like it’s been so long already, feels like I know her so well already, but eight months…”

“Well, it’s no use waiting if it feels right, Gabriel.”, Katrin said, meanwhile drying off the last few spoons and putting them away into the cutlery drawer before turning back to him.  “And it’s certainly no use waiting if you two are as clearly deeply in love with each other as you are.  I mean, if you wait much longer, your heart’s not going to handle that much love and it’ll just up and quit one day…”, Katrin said, which got Gabriel to tentatively press his hand over his heart, which beat strong and steady in his chest.  It was true that his love for Samantha had his heart aching at times, making the all-important organ feel like it was close to bursting, but it had kept going strong so far so he had no reason to believe his love for his girlfriend would cause him any kind of overload yet, which got him to smile when he answered Katrin.

“Well, then call me old-fashioned, but I believe that I need to know Sam pretty fuckin’ well before proposing to her.  There’s no rush, she ain’t goin’ anywhere, and neither am I.  …Trust me, I’m proposin’ to her, but I’ll know when the time’s right, Katrin – besides, what about you an’ Damien, huh?  He ain’t asked you yet, either-”

“Oh, but he will…”, she said, smiling brightly – Gabriel wasn’t surprised by the change in her mood, from playful and energetic to soft and loving, at the mere thought of Samantha’s brother, but he  _was_ surprised by her next words: “If it isn’t tonight, then it’ll be tomorrow evening, at dinner.”

“Wait, what?”, Gabriel said, blinking.  “…You… know he’s gonna propose to you?”

“Uh, yes, but it’s kind of an accident and I really don’t want Damien to know that I know, okay?  Mum’s the word here.  …I was looking for my skirt this morning-”

“Heh, that’s a feeling I can relate to – well, not a skirt for me, but it’s fuckin’  _god-awful_ where clothes can get lost to when you don’t at least pay a  _little_ attention to where ya toss 'em.”, Gabriel said, grinning lopsidedly and getting rewarded by an overly theatrical sigh of the woman that then continued.

“-and I happened to see a receipt for a jeweller on 58th that I happen to know.  All of my friends shop there.  And… well, I don’t know what kind of ring he bought, or whether it’s even gonna be the right size – but knowing Damien, it’ll be perfect in every way. The ring he bought is certainly expensive, that’s for sure.”, she said lightly, shaking her head and adding in a genuine tone: “…But I’d say yes to him even if the ring he gave me came with a cereal package.  And Sam would say yes to you in a heartbeat, no matter the circumstances.  She loves you  _completely_. …Ah well, the dishes are all done, let’s go join Damien.”, she then said, winking brightly at Gabriel, who nodded solemnly.  She didn’t need to say that he should keep his mouth shut about the subject, and he didn’t need to say that he would do so: instead he found himself winking back at her as a silent 'good luck’ wish.  The two of them moved back into the living room, where the television was on an English news channel showing fireworks with a newsreader speaking soundlessly, while Damien lay back in one of the sofas dozing, breathing a little uneasily – Gabriel didn’t know the man at all well yet, but he had seen Damien doze on the sofa before and he knew this was utterly faked.  Katrin seemed to realize it as well, because she chuckled softly and patted his shoulder.

“Wakey wakey, sleepy Dami…”

“Mmm, ’m not asleep…”, he muttered in an admittedly realistic impression of his usual sleep-drunk behavior, Gabriel found, though his eyes betrayed him, nervously darting from Katrin to the rest of the room and then the door leading outside.  If there was any doubt about the moment when Damien would ask the question, there now wasn’t anymore.  “…S-so what time is it now?”

“Eleven ten-”, Katrin started, only to be interrupted by Sam who walked into the living room looking rosy-cheeked.

“Eleven eleven, to be precise, and it’s  _freezing_ out there.  I came inside to get my coat-”

“Et une p'tite bise de ton amour?”, Gabriel asked tentatively, to which Sam answered with a broad smile.

“Ah, Gabriel, I can’t resist that – I thought it went without saying… mmm…”  Gabriel kissed her lightly as he’d intended, but for some reason they ended up kissing a lot more passionately than that, only breaking apart when Damien spoke up in slightest embarrassment.

“You two, at least  _try_ to not  _eat each other’s face off in present company_?”

“Oh, Damien, you big  _ostrich_ , I can kiss Gabriel like I want to, it’s not like you wouldn’t kiss Katrin like that even in front of me if you feel like it.”, Sam reacted, looking at her brother fondly which contradicted her words completely – however, the fond look she gave him lasted only a few seconds before she scrambled for the remote and switched the television’s sound on right in the middle of a news item.

“ _-Melbourne, where the annual New Year’s Rave took place ten hours ago.  As usual, the fireworks display was made and executed by Katchan Fire Inc, the world’s leading player in pyrotechnical displays and shows – but ravers that were interviewed that attended the previous year’s edition claim that this display lacks in 'fire’.  When asked, the leader of the team of Katchan Fire Britain that is at the site to take care of the display, mister Jake Grantley, refused to comment on those remarks.”_  As soon as the man in question’s face was shown on the television set, scowling unhappily, Sam switched the tv off and sighed.

“Well,  _he_ ’s still in the same place he was last year…”  Then, suddenly, it clicked in Gabriel’s mind and he glared at the dark television as if it was still on and displaying the face of the man that had ended Sam’s career with her previous team.  However, he wasn’t the first one to speak, he found: Damien, of all people, beat him to it.

“…How drunk were you to sleep with  _him_?! He’s so ugly he wouldn’t even need to dress up for Halloween!”

“Trust me, that’s part of the reason why my team was so disgusted with me – and… well, he did have a nice personality, I thought.  …But oh, my heart ached seeing that… those ravers are right, it was utterly  _uninspired_. Almost as if they’d just made random fireworks and just threw them together haphazardly.  Jake wouldn’t have stood for that a year ago, what’s changed?”

“Maybe he has?”, Katrin suggested, sighing as she added: “I’ve  _met_ him last year, and he’s certainly got charm aplenty.  Ugly as the backside of a gorilla, sure, but charming and intelligent, highly so even.  I’m completely baffled as to why he’d let his team slack off so much that they’d ruin an entire display.  …I don’t know, but there’s definitely something off, Sam…”, she said before turning the subject away from the man again – something Gabriel was very happy about, since the thought of his Sam with that ugly, conniving bastard of a man made him want to find the guy and beat him up until he was nothing but a bloody pulp on his knuckles.  “…So, Sam, are you all set up?”

“Well, yes, but I came inside to get my coat and to maybe get some alone time with Gabriel before the fireworks start and I have to be one hundred percent focused on those instead of this handsome boyfriend of mine…”, she said lightly, something that Gabriel rewarded by snaking an arm around her waist and pulling her against him tightly.

“Let me just get our coats an’ I’ll come along outside with ya…”, he said, resolving to at least give Sam a heads-up about Damien’s plans. She didn’t protest, instead nodding eagerly enough to cause her brother to groan.

“ _Behave_ out there, you two, or you’ll catch a cold!”

“Hey, Damien, don’t give us ideas…”, Gabriel said, pulling Sam along a little more hasty than strictly necessary, getting another groan from her brother and a somewhat relieved look from the man’s girlfriend, both of which he ignored as soon as the door closed and he and Sam walked outside to the place where she’d set up the fireworks. “…Hey, Sammy, uh…”, Gabriel started, but to his surprise Sam spoke simultaneously.

“Gabriel, mon amour-”

“Oh, wait, you go first…”, he said, motioning airily with his hands, which made the cold sting on his scars and led to him putting them back into his pockets, waiting for his girlfriend to speak what she needed to say.

“Okay, uh, don’t be surprised by what’ll happen later, Damien-”

“You know he’s gonna propose to Katrin?”, Gabriel asked, and she nodded, biting her lip a little nervously.

“Y-yeah, I… some of the electrical fuses didn’t work, so I went inside looking for a screwdriver, found Damien acting mysteriously and rifling through a cupboard, and when I said that he’d better tell me what was going on, he confessed that he’d feigned having overeaten to be able to prepare for asking her the question.  I… kind of lost it-”

“Hell, who wouldn’t?  …Jeez, Katrin kinda knows he’s gonna propose too, she’s the one that told me 'it’s either today or tomorrow’, she found the receipt for the ring by accident-”  Then, seeing the shocked expression on Sam’s features, he quickly added: “B-but she’s gonna be surprised anyway, she doesn’t got a clue how the ring looks like, and if she isn’t actually surprised, she’s gonna act it, I think – but hell, who even cares?  Damien’s gonna go for it, and she isn’t gonna say no to him.  You’re gonna get another sister-in-law.”

“Heh, I said that same thing to Damien and he looked at me as if I’d grown an extra head – he seems to think Annabelle isn’t really my sister-in-law  _just yet_.”, Sam reacted with a bright smile that had Gabriel’s heart leap up. Remembering Katrin’s question, he then grinned at Sam and carefully removed his hands from his pockets again, pulling her closer and kissing the top of her head.  “…Katrin asked me when  _I_ was gonna ask  _you_  – you’re not in any kind of rush for me to tie the both of us together, right?”, he asked bluntly, figuring that honesty and openness was the best path: to his relief, Sam chuckled and nodded gently.

“No rush whatsoever.  You know I love you, I know you love me – for the moment, that’s all we need, not some paper that  _says_ we do or a ring that  _shows_ we do.”

“Oh, amen to that, mon ange…”, he muttered, kissing her forehead and then her lips with a gentle fire that, for a change, did  _not_ flare into an inferno of desire.

 

Tension was an understatement for the feeling that coursed through Sam as she walked back inside to get Katrin and Damien.  She felt so high-strung that she suspected the air to have been laced with JumpStart around her, because it felt so much like the hypercaffeine rush that she normally associated with the diabolical energy drink.  Then again, she mused, she’d only started feeling her heartbeat and the slightest movements of her limbs five minutes before, when Gabriel had reminded her of the time.

“Oh, Sam, we were just about to come outside!”, Damien said hastily as he straightened his clothes – they didn’t show any creases at all, which made her brother’s nerves all the more apparent to her, but Katrin gave her a dazzling smile and she nodded minutely to show she understood perfectly – it was all she could manage before her own nerves got the better of her again.

“It’s set to 'automatic’ so whether we’re there or not, it’s starting at one minute to twelve – not the fireworks, but there’s a countdown part in there-”

“Well, let’s go then, it’s five to midnight!”, Katrin said happily, giving Damien a soft nudge with her elbow.  “Damien, sweetie, if you wanna toast the new year, you’d better make sure to bring champagne and glasses out there – or do you want us to troop back inside after?”

“…Well, uh, maybe a little, yeah…  I mean, there’s no use standing around in the cold without fireworks going off overhead, right?”, he admitted, prompting Sam to lightly laugh as she nodded, part of the tension falling away again.

“So, how high are your hopes for this fireworks?”, she said, and Katrin grinned.

“Melbourne grade?”  It wasn’t an actual expectation but a question, Sam realized before her stomach had the chance to clench up, and she allowed herself a moment of sheer confidence.

“ _Better_ , definitely.”

“Well, then, I am ready to be blown away, Sam, darlin’!”, the woman said, grinning broadly as she linked arms with Sam on one side and Damien on the other, smiling broadly at both.  “…Same goes for you, Damien, you’d better make the first night of the new year  _memorable_.”

“I daresay I’ll manage that somehow.”, Damien said subtly, winking at Sam who pretended to gag.

“ _Dear lord,_ Damien,  _please don’t keep me and Gabriel out of our sleep-_ ”

“Oh, as if you two are gonna sleep any in the first two hours – Gabriel looked to me like a man with a plan, and when he’s thinking of you, that can only be one type of plan, Sam, dear.”, Katrin responded, poking her tongue out and causing Damien to bite back a fond statement.  Then, however, the three of them moved outside, to where Gabriel stood – as soon as he saw her, he instantly started grinning.

“Just in time, mon ange, two minutes to midnight…”  She joined him, being rewarded with a kiss on the cheek and then a fond whisper in her ear.  “…Guess everyone’s a little nervous, huh?”

“Oh, what are  _you_ even nervous about, mon amour?”, she asked back quietly, to which Gabriel meant to answer only to get interrupted by a soft beep from her laptop showing that the automatic program for her fireworks had started, after which an autotuned female voice sounded loudly in the quiet of the night.

“PREPARE FOR COUNTDOWN… WE ARE SYNCED TO THE ATOMIC CLOCK FOR MAXIMUM ACCURACY… A NEW YEAR COMMENCES IN FORTY-FIVE SECONDS… BRING YOUR LOVED ONES TO THE SHOW… T MINUS THIRTY SECONDS NOW… MAKE SURE YOUR CHAMPAGNE IS CHILLED AND YOUR HANDS ARE WARMED… COUNTDOWN COMMENCING – TEN… NINE… EIGHT… SEVEN… SIX… FIVE… FOUR… THREE… TWO… ONE…”  The computerized voice didn’t speak out again: instead, a flurry of rockets exploded in midair overhead, all of them a golden colour, and Sam grinned broadly as the music she’d programmed fell in.  It was one of her favourite songs, mysterious and at the same time catchy – if she was completely honest, she’d made her fireworks display around the song subconsciously.  Every beat in the music was offset by another rocket or comet firing, the colour slowly going from golden to a deep, vibrant red and then over a brilliant purple and an almost blinding silver to blue.  Palm trees followed, the glittering green of their 'leaves’ and the bright gold of their 'trunks’ even more beautiful against the backdrop of the roiling blue that seemed like an ocean captured in the sky.  Then, however, the blue turned back into a deep purple and then into a fiery red interspersed with flecks of yellow, making it look almost like lava bubbling up from the earth, against which another series of multicoloured explosions seemed all the more brilliant. She’d especially chosen the colour of the rockets to be contrasting, hues of blue and green that made the red shine all the more while not catching the eye too much – and then the red slowly died away, after which more of the 'bouquet’ rockets fired and showered the world with their splendor. The music wound down slowly but the fireworks kept going, firing into the night sky with high-pitched whistles – Gabriel looked at her, the question clear in his eyes, and she answered without a word by raising an eyebrow and nudging her head minutely to the sky to indicate that there was more to come, at which point he grinned and nodded, coincidentally looking up again at the exact right time for another special rocket she’d made to explode overhead and rain down sparks that seemed to change colour every second – and then, a more energetic song kicked in, the bassline loud and offset marvellously by the explosions overhead, each note seemingly linked to another colour – Gabriel’s look of happy surprise alone was more than worth it, but Damien and Katrin’s utter bliss seemed to make her boyfriend’s joy twice as enjoyable.  More mines and cakes fired their charges into the night’s sky while more and more rockets fired in time with the music, each bass-thud accompanied by an aerial explosion  that varied between a vivid red, glittering green, cerulean blue, brilliant white, shimmering gold, and even bright orange and an almost fluorescent yellow.  After the rocketbursts came sizzling comets that shot streams of coiling fire into the air – those, too, changed color, painting rainbow-like paths through the night’s sky overhead – and then another series of cakes and mines started firing, only these ones created a bright scene in vibrant green interspersed with pinpricks of white, like a surreal kind of meadow over their heads.  And then Sam’s pride and joy fired – a series of five rockets that exploded perfectly synchronously, but that wasn’t what made them special.  When flakes of white started slowly falling from the sky, Gabriel gave her a look of surprise and she grinned.  It wasn’t real snow, of course, but the small plastic confetti she’d used was realistic enough to make the sight enchanting.  Four more rockets fired, these ones again changing colour in mid-air, and Sam sighed.  It seemed like all too soon that the music died away again and that the last few rockets fired into the night’s sky to rain down one more rainbow of sparks over the world before everything was silent and her laptop gave another muted bleep to show the program had run its course.

“…So… what did you think?”, she asked – true to his awe of before, Gabriel was the first to speak up.

“Mon ange, that was amazing – if ya teach me to make any fireworks even  _half_ as good as that, I’ll be si heureux, t'peux jamais le comprendre…  So, Damien, Katrin, what did  _you-_ ”, Gabriel started, but the two weren’t paying any attention to them, instead standing hand in hand looking at each other intently. Damien’s words were spoken softly but still loud enough so Sam could hear them clearly – and Gabriel as well, if his halting mid-sentence was any indication.

“Katrin, it’s been a fantastic six months, and each passing day I become more and more convinced that my life is nothing, absolutely nothing, without you in it.  Every day I love you more, every day I need you closer… every day I fall for you a little harder.”

“Me too, Damien.”, Katrin said, smiling brightly at him – the intimacy of the moment made Sam contemplate looking away, since that was what Damien would do if she and Gabriel shared a moment, but knowing what would follow made sure that she kept her eyes on her brother and his girlfriend.

“…And I don’t know about you, Katrin, but I don’t ever want to stop falling.  I never want to hit the ground.  I don’t think I can ever even  _touch_ the ground anymore, you’ve got me soaring so high.  …Well, can you believe that this is the first time that I’ve ever  _not_ known how to say what I need to say?”, he said, biting his lip – a nervous gesture that clearly ran in the family, Sam mused as she made a conscious effort to stop abusing her own lower lip – and then Katrin spoke, her words level-headed, showing to Sam and hopefully to the two men just how perfectly well she fit together with Damien.

“Don’t look for a fancy way, sometimes simple is the best.”  Damien looked taken aback for a second or two before taking a deep breath and speaking plainly as he took out the box with the ring.

“Marry me, Katrin Patterson.  Marry me, and we’ll be the happiest two people on this earth.”

“Well, if you say it like that, how can I say 'no’?”, she said with a dazzling smile – a smile that disappeared from view in lieu of a passionate kiss she shared with Damien, causing Sam’s eyes to tear up instantly as her brother lifted his now-fiancée and spun her around before detaching from her again to slip the ring on her finger.

“Oh, I feel amazing now…”, Damien admitted, and Katrin smiled broadly, looking at the ring with conspicuously sparkling eyes, showing that, even if it hadn’t been a surprise to her, she still felt emotional.

“Oh, this calls for a celebration – that’d better be  _real_ champagne and not the cheap imitation-”, she said to Damien, and he nodded vigorously.

“Nothing but the best for you, Katrin, my love.  …A-and for Sam and Gabriel, too, of course, I just love spoiling those closest to me.”, he added when he seemed to remember that he and Katrin weren’t alone, offering Gabriel the first glass as a peace offering.  Gabriel passed it on to Sam in turn with a wink before taking the last glass as Damien held it out to him.

“Okay, I know you two are all glowin’ now, but can I make the toast?”, Gabriel asked, causing Sam to look at him to see a genuine smile on his face and nod at her brother, which got him to nod at Gabriel in turn.  “…To Damien and Katrin – this year’s just the start of a  _lifetime_ of good luck and prosperity for the two of ya, just you see.  Que vous aurez un tas d'joie, et que votre bonheur ne vous échappe plus jamais.”, he said, raising his glass and adding as he looked over the edge of it to the other couple: “An’ here’s to hoping you’ll be the second happiest couple in the universe – sorry, man, but me an’ Sammy-”

“Yes, I figured that… well, the same for you, Gabriel and Sam, may your road be forever downhill and lead to golden fields.  …I’d like to toast to my Katrin, my future wife – the most beautiful woman in the world, bar none.  Sorry, Sam-”, he said sheepishly, but Sam laughed lightly and nodded.

“About time you found someone other than me to take care of you, brother dearest.  You’re in good hands with Katrin.  I would like to toast to all of us, may happiness come to us all in equal measure and may it  _stay_.”, she said – Damien was paying rapt attention to Katrin while she spoke, and when Sam said the final word of her toast, her brother kissed his fiancée again, lightly at first but soon they seemed to have forgotten that Sam and Gabriel were still present, causing Sam to sigh and shake her head, moving to embrace Gabriel.

“…Well, I’m sure Katrin’s toast would’ve led up to this too, so…”

“Heh, oui… say, wanna go back inside?  I could do with a li'l warmin’ up-”, Gabriel said, and his eyes said what his words did not voice as he gave her a clearly appraising look, causing her to grin and nod.

“A little more than warming up, too, I think, mon âme-”, she said, and he ground out his answer lowly and softly so only she would hear, despite Damien and Katrin’s distraction making sure they weren’t paying any attention to them anymore.

“Bien, oui, I wanna start the new year with a bang in more ways than one, mon ange, mon désir… don’t say you don’t want it too, j'le vois dans tes yeux, telle ardence, telle chaleur… le partage avec moi, j'vais te faire sentir le plus mieux que jamais…”

“…mmm, okay…  It’s not like those two will take notice of us at all anymore tonight…”  She allowed Gabriel to eagerly pull her inside, his hand already disappearing underneath her coat and sweater before they were even through the door.


	41. Is it all you need to feel this heat (Warm holidays part 7)

“…Mon dieu, j'ai soif…”, Gabriel groaned as he disentangled himself from a sleeping Sam’s limbs late the next afternoon.  Damien had already been gone when he and Samantha had gotten out of bed, and Katrin had stood in the kitchen wearing her pyjamas, singing softly and looking as though she’d been caught in a hurricane – when Sam and Gabriel had turned up for their breakfast, she’d smiled knowingly and given them a hearty breakfast that had admittedly restored the energy they’d so happily wasted the previous night.  Afterwards, Katrin had suggested that they just stay indoors and watch movies, a suggestion that Sam had agreed with and Gabriel had absolutely loved – but now, with Sam fast asleep on the sofa, mumbling his name as he ran his fingers lightly through her hair, he felt like he had to get up and move.  “…J'retourne à toi, mon ange…”, he whispered, chuckling when she grumbled and sleepily made to grab his hand but failed to find it.  “J'te jure, j'vais pas te manquer plus longue que nécessaire pour m'allèver mon soif…”

“Wait, I’m coming with.”, Katrin said, getting up from the armchair she’d been sitting in with a clear grimace, showing that she’d been of the same mindset as him, Gabriel mused.  “And we’ll start a  _new_ movie afterwards, this one isn’t that interesting anyways.”

“…Bien, bien…”, Gabriel said, smiling as he walked to the kitchen, scratching his arm absent-mindedly as he went.  It felt like his body was covered in lint, tickling him with each movement, something he  _knew_ wasn’t true. Two steps behind him, Katrin put her hand on the dining room door just as he removed his and then quickly stepped out in front of him so she was in the kitchen first.

Just like the first time he’d seen Damien’s kitchen, Gabriel’s heart gave a little jump.  How a man with Damien’s nonexistant culinary skills got a fully equipped and incredibly well-stocked kitchen was beyond him – but the man had admitted to having a housekeeper that usually cooked for him, and Katrin had already shown that she knew her way around a kitchen better than most women Gabriel knew, and that was saying something.

“…Thinking about dinner?”, Katrin asked lightly, and Gabriel understood that he’d stood in the doorway a little longer than he’d thought, causing him to grin and shrug.

“Thinkin’ about the fuckin’ miserable kitchen at base an’ the tiny kitchen Sam and I got.  With a kitchen like this, I’d cook her five course meals every single night.  An’ more caramel than two people could ever eat in a lifetime, j'le jure.”  At the mention of caramel, Katrin chuckled and nodded.

“I think Damien told me a little about you and your likin’ caramel.  You sent some homemade caramel to Sam while she was in the hospital, right?  With liqueur filling?”, she said, and Gabriel nodded, remembering Grant’s pestering him about the caramel and how he’d told the Georgian engineer to take a hike… but also remembering the feeling he got when he spoke to Sam on the phone the next day and she’d clearly had her mouth full of caramel as she said it was delicious and that she had to pace herself to make it last her entire stay at the hospital.  He supposed he got a dreamy look on his face, since Katrin’s next words were mildly teasing: “Looks like someone put a lot of TLC in those caramels…”

“Yeah, well, quand on m'demande… when anyone asks me ‘when did you fall in love with Sam?’, the moment when she called me with a mouthful of my homemade caramel confessing that she wanted nothin’ more than eating her way through it in one sitting… that’s a prime fuckin’ candidate…”  Suddenly, Katrin’s expression became attentive, her eyes getting that shrewd and calculating gleam that he’d seen so often on Grant and recently on Damien, and Gabriel found himself wondering what the woman wanted to know.

“…Can I ask you a personal an’ maybe invasive question, Gabriel?” Dumbfounded, Gabriel nodded and looked at his hands, contemplating what question his girlfriend’s future sister-in-law could ask, but he was utterly surprised when it was finally voiced.  “…Do you still got those pictures Sam took of herself before she had her restorative surgery?”

“Well, uh, yeah, I do still got them-”, he answered, intending to say that that was normal, but Katrin’s follow-up question came faster than he could even formulate the thought.

“And do you still look at 'em?  I mean, you’re madly in love with Samantha, takes a fool not to see that, but… you fell for her from day one, I think.  From the first day you saw her.  You didn’t know anything about her, you didn’t even know whether Sam was short for Samantha or for Samuel or whether it was just 'Sam’.  But you took pictures for her after only one day of havin’ known her, the kind of pictures that I wouldn’t even take for Damien and we’re  _engaged_ now… So, do you still look at 'em?  Trace your fingers over 'em?”, she asked, and Gabriel swallowed a sudden lump that had risen in his throat.  How had she known that at times, when Sam was busy making explosives or fireworks or reading, he’d taken out those pictures and had lovingly traced the contours of her shoulders or imagined himself caressing those sparse locks of wiry orange hair that she still had?

“…I… yeah, b-bien sûr…”, he stammered out, causing the woman to smile and nod.

“And d'you think you fell for her back then?”  Gabriel mused on that thought for a while, softly shaking his head.  He didn’t believe that he’d fallen for Sam way back then, not as deeply as he was now.  But it was undeniable that something had started that very first moment, something that had only grown and flourished so far, something that would come to beautiful fruition one day…  He spoke without properly realizing it himself, smiling broadly enough to hurt his cheeks.

“She… I fell for her back then, yeah, but only a little.  An’ I fell for her a li'l more the next day, and then the next, and the next… every time I see her I fall for her a little harder.  Oh, mon dieu, que ça se sent comme si j'vais jamais de ma vie toucher d'la terre firme de nouveau… et je m'en fous.  Ma terre firme, c'est  _elle_. Mon seul besoin est  _elle_. Si j'mourrais aujourd'hui, j'mourrais heureux.”  Grinning, he added: “An’ me and her, we’re so close, both mentally and emotionally… we’re practically married-”

“Then why don’t you ask her yet?”, Katrin said, smiling encouragingly back at him, and Gabriel sighed, taking the carton of fruit juice and taking a long draught right from the plastic lip on it before answering.

“A lot of reasons.  Stupid reasons, little reasons,  _huge_ fuckin’ reasons.  I don’t got a ring to give her, I don’t got a lot of other stuff to give her… my heart’s damaged goods, my mind even more so, my body fortunately not as much…  We don’t know each other that long, but yet it feels like we’ve known each other all our damn lives.  …I guess I’m just waitin’ for the right moment to jump in…”, he finally admitted, and Katrin chuckled.

“There’s no 'right’ moment – or, well, better put, there’s no 'wrong’ moment.  You love her, she loves you, then why wait?”

“Well, I… there’s  _one_ reason that’s stoppin’ me.  Not the pyromania, not the mandatory psych evaluations, not the shit I got up to in the past… but the goddamn  _prison sentence_ I’ve still got to serve.  I ain’t free to give myself away completely just yet, and she deserves it  _all_ , you know?  Elle ne mérite que tout ce que j'peux lui offrir.”, he admitted, and Katrin now patted his shoulder.

“You might get the chance to offer her everything you are an’ everything you got sooner than you expect.  I… don’t know if Sam told you about it, but about a month ago she called Damien an’ asked him if he could do anything for you.  Dami’s got a friend, Rupert Walberg, that’s arranged Samantha’s legal affairs and that got her represented during her coma, as her parents sued her… an’ that name might not ring a bell to you, but Rupert’s a top-notch attorney that’s quickly risin’ to prominence in the corporate field.  If he’s on your case, you’re set up for success… an’ he is.  This mornin’, as Damien left, he got a message from Rupert askin’ him to meet with him for lunch, so maybe they’ll discuss your case an’ what can be done.  I mean, don’t get too high hopes – Damien already told Sam on the telephone that your case itself is rock solid, you don’t deny that you lit that fire and all… but twenty years for arson is apparently the maximum sentence, so maybe they can ask for a readjustment of the sentence or parole.  I’m not really at home in law an’ legislation…”, she admitted with a shy grin that he answered without a second thought.  The mere notion that his prison sentence wasn’t set in stone made his spirits lift as if he’d been inflated with helium.

“Hell, me neither, but that’s what lawyers are for.  … _Shit_ , I completely forgot that Sammy asked that, it… got lost in that shit about her not wantin’ me to help out for the fireworks display she did on the base…”  When Katrin gave him a confused look, he sighed and nodded softly: “Yeah, not my finest moment of last month.  I… overheard Sam tellin’ Grant she didn’t want me to help her out and I got a li'l… distracted an’ upset.  Like I said, not my finest moments.  Sam got the short end of my bad temper.  Anyway, one day I came to see her, she ran out cryin’ an’ ran to Dell – he’s her team’s engie-”

“I remember him, he was the amiable older man with the wife that looked so radiant and the two little kids that got you and Sam tied happily down in that sofa.”, Katrin admitted with a smile that Gabriel found himself answering mindlessly, the mere memory of the two children enough to make his mood soar yet again.

“…Ah, those kids…”

“Sounds like you want little ones of your own, Gabriel…”, Katrin said with a wink, and Gabriel now laughed, softly and yet fully, the last residual tension falling away from him as he answered.

“Step by step, Katrin – step one’s gettin’ to know mon ange as well as I can.  Then, step two is to get her to say 'yeah’ to a future with me-”

“Oh, to you, I’d never in my life say 'no’, mon amour…”, came the offhand answer from the doorway to the dining room – turning around, Gabriel found his girlfriend standing there, leaning loosely against the doorframe and looking like she’d only just woken up though she still had a brilliant smile that made her look like the epitomy of beauty even though her hair was slightly tangled and he could see grit in her eyes.  “…Especially not when it’s  _our_ future we’re talking about.”, she added as she walked over to give him a tight, loving hug that he wasted no time in returning.

“Mmm, good to know, mon ange… sorry that I wasn’t there, but…” Wiggling the now empty carton of fruit juice at her in lieu of a full answer, he prompted a soft chuckle out of her.

“That’s understandable, I’m a little thirsty myself.  The movie’s done, too, I woke up just in time to see them fly off into the sunset…”  As she reached into the fridge, she leaned into Gabriel semi-casually, her hip pressing against his as an unspoken promise, and he found himself grinning at her as she drank from a bottle of lemonade that stood inside, yawning loudly as she put it back.

“Y'know what, Katrin?  Think I’ll take a range check on that last movie – I’m feelin’ more like a little nap.  Sam’ll tuck me in, right, mon ange?”, he said, and she nodded eagerly, making his mind preoccupied with far more important things than Katrin’s teasing remarks as he and Sam walked out of the kitchen and towards the guest room, holding each other’s hand loosely.

 

“…I can’t believe this is already the last evening we get to spend together, Sam.”, Damien sighed out after dinner, causing Sam to nod ruefully.  The week had seemingly flown by, she mused – at first with the  _opulent_ gift Damien had gotten her, and then with the fireworks display she’d made and Damien proposing to Katrin, and after that it’d felt like the house was just  _filled_ with tension that they first needed to get rid of by a full night’s sleep. “You know, I found myself wishing I didn’t go to work yesterday, because I get the feeling I missed half of your stay here.”

“You did not miss half of it, Dami, you silly man!”, Sam reacted with a shake of her head, though she gave him a mournful look the next second.  “…Likewise.  I get the distinct feeling that we saw altogether too little of each other.  …But not to worry, I’m sure that we can squeeze in a visit somewhere – maybe around Easter, we’ll get a week off then-”

“A week where we already promised to visit ma famille too, Sammy, don’t forget…”, Gabriel quickly voiced, prompting Sam to chuckle softly and wink at her boyfriend.

“J'ai pas oublié, mon amour… but I think we can visit your dad and your sister for four days or so and then come over here for the remaining three or four we get, n'est-ce pas?”, she said, to which he smiled and nodded vigorously.

“Ouais, bien sûr!  Damien, man, if I somehow could smuggle that bed on base with me, I would – handmade or not, the bed we got is kind of sorry-”

“Handmade? You… made your own bed?”, Damien asked, and Sam blinked.

“Didn’t I already tell you that?  I distinctly remember telling you… o-or was that Katrin?  …Anyway, yes, Gabriel made our bedframe himself, with a little help from an actual woodworker, Radovan, his team’s heavy weapons expert.”

“Oui…”, Gabriel said, smiling broadly as he clearly reminisced about the work he’d put into it.  “…Rado’s a great craftsman, he said he used to make all kinds of things from wood.  Sculptures, carvings, he even told me he made a wooden leg for someone that lost his leg to frostbite in Siberia.  With  _toes_ and everything.  …Yeah, he did real well there, teachin’ me.  And that bed’s… I love it, but the bed you got here, Damien…  _ah_ , that bed’s made for me, j'le jure.”

“Well, it’s a non-standard size bed, so maybe it feels better because you can actually lay in it completely without your legs falling off the end or without you having to scrunch up inside it?”, Damien remarked, prompting Gabriel to blink and Sam to nod.

“Yes, now that Damien mentions it, mon âme, I already noticed that you don’t lay on your sides as much here… well, if our bed isn’t good for your back or so, we can always order a-”

“ _Non_ , mon ange, I made that bed for us, I ain’t gonna let a little comfort get in the way of feelin’ proud and satisfied every mornin’ when I wake up in the bed  _I made_. No, I was just… kiddin’, I guess.”, he quickly said, prompting Sam to smile and nod before turning suddenly to look at her brother as he tapped her on the shoulder.

“Sam, could I ask you to help me with something last-minute in my study?”, he asked, his expression open but at the same time betraying a gravity that she supposed made him such a fine businessman at such a young age already: nodding, she got up from her chair, looking apologetically at Katrin and Gabriel.

“…Sorry to stand you up with the dirty dishes-”, she started, only for Katrin to cut her off.

“No worries, Gabriel and I can manage.  Damien, don’t lay claim on her all evening, though, okay?  I don’t know about you, but I still want to do something cosy with the four of us tonight.”

“Heh, I second that.”, Gabriel said softly, grinning when Sam nodded his way.  She meant to speak and say that they could always watch the last movie that they hadn’t yet gotten around to watching the previous days, or  finally play a board game or card game like Damien had promised at the beginning of their stay, but her brother gently pulled her along out of the dining room and through the living room to the hallway leading to the staircase, pushing open a door next to it that Sam knew to lead to his study.

It was the first time she’d entered there.  The days before, Damien had always kept them busy, and on the one or two days that he hadn’t, it hadn’t entered her mind to sneak a peek into his work domain; but now that she saw it, she wondered how she’d been able to contain her curiosity as long as she had.  It was the one room in his entire house that wasn’t painted in a light or pastel colour: instead, the walls were a dark forest green, the furniture a deep rich brown tone that made her instantly think of the laminate floors in her and Gabriel’s room on base, and the ceiling was covered with something akin to that laminate flooring, small light and dark wood panels interspersed in an intricate design that was nevertheless not distracting as they walked to his desk, where a few files lay on one side and a laptop stood on the other end, both of which Damien pushed away in favor of leaning on the desktop a little towards Sam as she sat on one of the chairs he’d put on the other side of the desk.

“So, what’s this 'last-minute something’?”, she asked, and Damien smiled her way a little more as he shook his head.

“Oh, no, I… I just said that to have Katrin and Gabriel not ask me to tell them as well.  I figure you should know this first and then you can tell your boyfriend.  I’m not entirely sure how he’d react to the news and-”

“Oh… oh, i-it’s about his sentence, right?”, Sam said, her voice suddenly faltering and her eyes slowly scanning Damien’s expression again, carefully gauging any sign of the gravity he’d displayed before which would tell her that the news wasn’t good.  But he didn’t frown or look away, still smiling, and she sighed.  “Is it good news or bad news?”

“It’s good news – oh, no, I’m sorry, but whenever I… I am sorry, Sam, I just… you know how serious I am about planning out my every move, and I guess that translates when I do something for you or, in this case, Gabriel.  …It’s definitely good news.  Well, good news and a little bad news, of course, since this  _is_ a prison sentence we’re talking about…”  It was only when Sam exhaled a sigh of relief that she noticed how tense she’d become in a matter of seconds, simply because she’d been afraid that Damien’s news regarding her boyfriend wasn’t what she’d hoped for.  At that moment, she made a conscious effort to relax before speaking.

“So, did your friend with the legal aptitude manage to find something I –  _we –_  can do?”

“I daresay he did, indeed.”, Damien said – Sam supposed that she gave him an incredulous and questioning look considering that he patted her hand from across the desk and continued: “Let me start from the beginning.  Rupert was oddly  _happy_ to dig his teeth into this case, he said he’d been hoping for a little diversion from all of the corporate cases he’d had to do for the past few months.  By the time you’d contacted me about Gabriel’s case, he’d already wrapped up the loose ends for the lawyer back in Belgium to take over completely, and… Anyway, he was happy that I came to him with my request and he promised results quickly, since all I asked of him so far is to just analyze Gabriel’s case.  He came to me the day before yesterday with the results and…”

“And?”, Sam said as her brother let his voice ebb away almost teasingly, causing him to chuckle and soften his gaze.

“…And he came up with something that  _seems_ trivial but that’s apparently all-important-”, Damien said, halting suddenly and looking at the door, as did Sam, as they heard a sudden sound from behind it.  Putting his finger across his lips as a signal for Sam to be silent, Damien walked over and, in one fell motion, swept open the door, causing Katrin and Gabriel to nearly tumble inside.  “Eavesdropping?”, he lightly asked as Gabriel righted himself mere seconds before he’d fall to the ground, milling his arms to maintain his precarious balance, while Katrin actually fell and quickly got up, dusting herself off.  Both of them had blushes on their faces, but Gabriel a little less so, Sam noticed.  “Gabriel, I can still understand, but  _you_ , Katrin, love?”, her brother added, to which Gabriel answered.

“You know she’s nosy, Damien, plus she’s allowed to know.  An’ so am  _I_. Good, bad, anything in between, ya don’t gotta be afraid of how I react, okay?  Swearin’s the worst you’d ever have to endure from me.”

“Oh, but I wanted Sam to tell you, since it  _is_ good news regarding your prison sentence.”, Damien said, sighing in mock resignation and motioning for Gabriel and Katrin to sit down – instantly, as he sat down, Gabriel pulled Sam into his lap and wrapped one arm lazily around her waist, grinning faintly when Damien rolled his eyes before he continued.

“…So, where was I?  Ah yes, so Rupert found out one thing, something that seems like a detail but that is very, very important if you’d like to get Gabriel’s sentence reviewed.  The judge apparently motivated themaximum sentence by saying that Gabriel – and I’m paraphrasing here, I do have the literal words on paper but it’s the thought of them that counts – 'has no fixed income, no fixed place of residence, no social ties and no intention of having a steady and stable life’.  The judge even went so far as to say that the fact that Gabriel started a fire and that he caused such high property damage was  _secondary_ to the fact that he didn’t seem to want to settle in the US.  So if you’d want to get his sentence re-evaluated-”

“We’d just have to prove that he has a stable life now?”, Sam asked, nonplussed.  Could it really be that easy?  Just show that her boyfriend was now doing better in every field and he’d walk free? Behind her, Gabriel squeezed her closer just a little to show he was just as surprised by the notion as she was, and just as elated by the prospect of it being so easy for him to get his sentence reviewed. However, Damien tempered their mutual glee somewhat with a soft sigh and words spoken carefully.

“Yes, well, let’s not get too hasty.  The judge based the severity of the sentence based on the Illinois state-appointed psychiatrists that evaluated Gabriel at first – and said that any further judgments regarding his mental state must be approved by the Illinois Board of Forensic Psychiatrists first.  So if they say that Gabriel hasn’t improved, there’s a big chance that the judge will rule that the risk of a repeat offense is too big even if Gabriel’s got a stable life now.  You can’t forget that he  _had_ a stable life in Canada too and that he  _still_  lit fires nonetheless.”  Sam meant to speak disparagingly after that, to tell Damien that Gabriel’s past did not define all of him, that he was a better man now, but to her surprise her boyfriend sighed heavily and nodded, the motion of which she could feel even in the muscles of his arms.

“J'comprends. …Well, my psych, doctor Hayakawa, she’ll know if I stand a chance or not, I guess.  I’m callin’ her tomorrow from the base.  …Hey, Damien?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks, man, j'le jure, mille fois merci.”  Turning slightly in his hold, Sam could see a genuinely thankful look on her boyfriend’s visage, directed at her brother who looked just as mollified as she felt. Quickly, Gabriel added: “I mean, ya didn’t have to do nothing for me, but you did all this – callin’ in favors from those fuckin’  _awesome_ friends ya got here-”

“Yes, well, Sam and you are practically married, and every favor I do for you brings a smile to her face as well, so… you can chalk it up to brotherly concern as well as wishing you personally the best.  You’re not a bad man-”

“Flattery ain’t gettin’ you nowhere, Damien.”, Gabriel said, grinning though it was still a genuinely thankful grin, something his words betrayed as well.  Then, he gently pushed Sam to her feet again before getting up off the chair and stretching, looking around the room.  “Okay, I don’t know about you, but I feel up for somethin’  _nice_ right about now!  A game, a movie…”

“Don’t you still have dishes to wash?”, Damien asked teasingly, hinting to the fact that Katrin and Gabriel had been eavesdropping, and the woman shrugged.

“I distinctly remember you saying you have a housekeeper that adores you, surely she won’t mind the dishes standing in the sink overnight. And if she  _would_ mind, I can always wash those dishes tomorrow, after we’ve all had breakfast.  Besides, would you rather spend your evenin’ with or without me by your side, Damien?”, she suggested, to which Damien sighed theatrically and nodded.

“Fine, you talked me into it… so, what game are you in the mood for, Sam, Gabriel?”

 

The air was cool and crisp around them to match his refreshed and alert mental state, Gabriel mused as he looked next to him again, to see Sam smile back at him.  The drive back had found him sleeping in the passenger seat half of the time, though he’d tried to stay awake to tease Sam a little, something that had worked miraculously well the first half-hour or so; then, however, she’d turned onto the highway, which had been extra busy due to the people returning home, and that had taken away all her attention, driving him to first find distraction in the scenery and then to slowly and gradually fall asleep.  Sam shaking him awake, teasing him about perhaps leaving him to continue his nap in her car while she went to town to see who was already there, had led to them being sidetracked.

“Penny for your thoughts, Gabriel, mon amour…”, Sam said, and Gabriel grinned.

“Oh, just… that new car of yours has a surprisingly roomy backseat, I gotta say-”

“ _Gabriel_ , don’t you dare bring that up inside the bar or it’s the last time you’ll get to enjoy it!”, Sam said with a deep blush that showed she’d at least been thinking along the same lines as he had been, and she couldn’t hide the self-indulgent grin that crept up on her features.  Then, a little more calmly, she added: “…I wonder how the rest of the guys’ holidays have been…”

“Heh, just like ours, only less makin’ love – well, 'cept maybe in Archie and Billy’s case, bet they kept Billy’s mom and li'l sis outta their sleep like they didn’t even need shut-eye.”  As he spoke, they approached the bar, where they found Archie and Billy standing outside, arms wrapped around each other and clearly enjoying their kiss to the point of not even noticing them approaching until Gabriel chuckled and patted both of them on the shoulder.  “Bon Nouvel An, p'tits connards!”

“Yo  _Gabriel_ , what the ever-lovin’  _fuck_ , man?!  Ya tryin’ to give us tha gift'a bein’ rushed to ER with a freakin’ heart attack?!”, Billy instantly shouted: Archie matched his lover’s glare, but he then smiled and shook his head.

“Will, man, don’t let  _Dante_ yank ya chain, awright?  …Sooo, you two did anythin’ other 'n screw over tha holidays?”, the BLU scout asked, to which Gabriel reacted with a grin before Sam could speak up.

“That’s for us to know an’ you little pricks to imagine.  But we  _did_ get to meet mon neveu et ma nièce-”

“Who?”, Billy asked, and Archie snorted.

“His niece an’ nephew, Will – ya mean ya been fightin’ alongside Pierre for, like, four years an’ ya still ain’t picked up a word'a French?” Billy gave his lover a half-sincere glare which got Gabriel to sigh and speak up before the two scouts started arguing.

“Ain’t hard.  I mean, I’ve been around Rudolf for  _ten_ years and I still don’t know enough German to do anythin’ but fuckin’ curse him out in his mother tongue.”  He fully expected Archie and Billy to let go of their argument; however, to his surprise, Archie spoke something entirely different from what he’d been expecting.

“Wait, Will, you  _did Dante_ the half-French fuckah for  _three years_ an’ ya ain’t picked up a word'a French?”

“Yo, I’m tryin’ to repress that!”, Billy said, causing Gabriel to groan at which point the scout paled and quickly added: “Not like that, Dante, jeez, cut me some slack here, dammit!  …Aw, ta hell with this, I’m goin’ inside for anothah damn shot, maybe if I get enough liquor ya gonna  _behave,_ Arch!”, the scout said, stalking inside.  Archie gave Gabriel a half-glare that had him bristle and intend to speak a few choice swearwords about the scout having brought Billy’s anger on himself, but Sam beat him to it, her voice level and yet with a hint of an edge in there to betray that there would be hell to pay if Archie dared open his mouth to voice the thought that went together with his glare.

“Well, you shouldn’t have brought Gabriel into the argument, Archie, exes are a low blow, especially when said ex is standing right there to hear it.  If Billy’s angry, you did it to yourself, and you’ll have to figure out a way to make it up to him yourself as well.  …Come on, Gabriel, mon amour, let’s go inside, it’s too cold to stand outside…”, she then said, gently pulling him inside alongside herself, sighing as soon as they were inside and Archie didn’t follow them.  Billy motioned for them to walk over to the bar the instant he noticed them.

“Hey, Gabe, man, ya know-”

“I know what ya meant, Will, and ya don’t gotta be sorry.  I’m tryin’ to repress that too.  …So, how _were_ the holidays?”

“Great, real great. Arch’ an my li'l sis fit togetha like whisky an’ soda, and my mom nevah even said one word 'bout not really likin’ me havin’ a boyfriend.  Or maybe she was just happy I wasn’t screwin’ around with you anymore, I dunno.”  There had been times as little as nine months before where Gabriel would’ve had a shouting match at the derogatory aside comment that Billy had just made, but now, all it took was one look from Sam before he chuckled and agreed.

“Yeah, thank the fuckin’ Lord that we both got better lovers now, huh? …Now, what do ya say to buyin’ a drink for the man that dumped ya so you could upgrade? And the woman he dumped ya for as well, naturellement-”

“Don’t say it like that, Dante, it ain’t  _all_ like that!  Fuck that, Imma buyin’ you two drinks 'cause you an’ Sam are my  _friends_ , an’ Archie’s friends as well even if he looks like he wants ta smack ya in tha freakin’ face half of the time.”, Billy said, to which Gabriel reacted with a shrug.

“Mes charmes take a little getting used to, bien sûr-”

“I’ll be sure to let ya know when I notice somethin’ of those 'charms’ ya mention, Dante.”, Archie said as he walked up behind them, grinning as he spoke to show he didn’t mean it.  His next sentence,though, was spoken in earnest: “Now shoo, go talk to Dell an’ Grant for a little, I think my shithead boyfriend needs a remindah that there ain’t no walkin’ away from Archie Jessup-”

“Say no more, I think I get the picture, thank you.  Don’t gross out half the town, you guys!”, Sam said – Archie affectionately raised his hand in a rude gesture that had his girlfriend laugh lightly, Gabriel was pleased to find.  However, before they walked to the two engineers, who were sitting at a table near the window talking amiably, Gabriel gave Sam a quick hug at the bar.

“T'es mon rêve, t'sais bien, oui?  You’re everythin’ I could ever hope for.  …Now c'mon, I’ll bet ya wanna know how much more Dell’s kids adore you after the fireworks.  He ain’t all wrapped up in bandages so they didn’t explode on him anyway-”  He’d said it teasingly, and Sam reacted to that quality in his voice by swatting at him playfully and poking her tongue out at him, after which she walked alongside him to the two southerners, who greeted them cheerily.

“Sam, Gabriel, ’s mighty fine t'see yew again!  Happy New Year, y'all-”

“And you.”, Sam said, gladly allowing Dell to kiss her on the cheek and then allowing Grant to mirror the gesture for good measure: Gabriel contemplated doing the same but refrained from it, just offering his hand for both men to shake as he added on Sam’s wishes.

“Yeah, happy New Year to the both of you, mes amis.  So, how were the holidays?”

“Ah, they was fine, real great t'see mah young'uns again… an’ Missy, ah swore she became more purdy an’ fantastic in them four months…”, Dell admitted, a broad grin on his features that went marvellously well with the wink he aimed at Sam as he elaborated: “Ah were jus’ tellin’ Grant 'ere 'bout how much 'f an artist y'are, Sam, li'l lady. Yer fireworks were  _amazin’_ , ain’t no other way t'put it.  Rigged 'em jus’ like yeh said an’ then let tha’ there laptop do all th'work while ah sat with Missy an’ mah li'l ones on the front porch.  Got compliments from th'half'a Bee Cave fer yew.”

“Heh, glad to know that half a town in Texas are now devoted fans.  That’s part of the reason why I love making fireworks so much, you know? You work for weeks and months on a single display, but that single display ends up bringing joy to hundreds, perhaps even thousands. Like the display I did last New Year’s in Melbourne.”

“Think ah saw this year’s display on th'news – them bein’ the first tuh celebrate th'New Year an’ all.”, Grant said pensively, scratching his auburn stubble, “…Hell, ah saw last year’s too, they did a comparison.  Ah were… ah mean, Dante told me y'made tha’ there display, an’ ah know y'did it as part'f a team, 'course, but…  _wow_ , S'mantha, tha’ were  _beautiful_. Ah don’t understand how yer boss let yew resign from tha’ there team.  No matter whut happened 'tween yew an’ yer boss-”

“H-hey, how do you…?”, Sam started – instantly, Gabriel groaned, because of course he’d told Grant, but in the strictest confidence; but then, Sam nodded and shrugged before allowing the engineer to continue.

“…Like ah were sayin’, no matter whut happened 'tween tha’ man an’ yew, yeh’re a master artisan at yer job, Suhmantha, an’ it’s plum foolish fer the man tuh let yew resign, let alone suggest th'idea to yeh.”

“Yes, well, I daresay my job here is an upgrade in many ways-”, Sam said, snaking an arm around Gabriel’s waist which of course caught Grant’s eye and caused the engineer to teasingly remark back.

“Ah git the feelin’ th'main way this 'ere job’s an upgrade is six feet tall an’  _loud_ if'n y'want him t'be.”  Instantly, Sam blushed but did not protest, causing Dell to chuckle and Gabriel to wrap an arm around Sam in turn and give his team’s engineer a half-heartedly annoyed look.

“Donc, okay, so how were  _your_ holidays then, Grant?  All fireworks like Dell’s?”  He half-expected the man’s dreamy look and the semi-grin that appeared on his features, but they were accompanied by the slightest reddening of his cheeks and a lofty tone in his voice as he spoke, which told Gabriel that Grant’s holidays were more than just great.

“Ah, seein’ mah li'l Lynn play 'round the house… had a couple'a good talks tuh Carol too…”

“Mon dieu, t'es pas sérieux, ou quoi?”, Gabriel said, baffling both engineers and causing Sam to raise an eyebrow.  Grant’s blush deepened, telling the RED pyro he was indeed correct in his assumption, and that led to him quickly voicing it in plain English. “Grant,  _seriously,_ ya  _fucked her_ , ain’t ya?”

“ _Gabriel Dawntahn, so help me Gawd_ , ah’m gonna  _lay yew out!_ If'n y'even open yer mouth 'gain right now, ah’m floorin’ yew, an’ yeh’re leavin’ base in a gawd-damn  _coffin_ if'n yeh ever,  _ever_ , dare speak tha’ disrespectfully 'bout mah Carol 'gain!”, the engineer said, but by now his guilty blush that was deep enough to make his hair look light, combined with the fact that he’d called his ex-wife 'his’, betrayed just how right Gabriel was.  Dell blinked and looked at his friend dumbfounded.

“Yeh… yeh  _neglected_ tuh tell me  _tha’_ li'l bit'f information, Grant, pardner… s-so yew an’ Carol… well, uh…”

“Oh my god, Grant, that is good – no, more than good, that is  _great!_ ”, Sam instantly took over when the BLU engineer was at a loss for words, smiling broadly at Gabriel’s teammate, just as broadly as he did and just as happily.  “Gabriel meant no disrespect – oh, but this is  _huge_ , Grant!  So you and Carol talked.  Before or after?”  She left the fact that the engineer had slept with his ex hanging in the air, but that was even more effective than Gabriel’s crude but truthful words before, the RED pyro mused as his colleague darkened a shade more around his cheeks.

“…Both. We… well, she confessed she still loves me, an’ ah sure ’s all hell don’t love no one else but her, but… well, she says she ain’t got no expectations.  Ah’m already Lynn’s dad, ’m already in her family…”

“Oh, come on, Grant, you should be honest, at least to yourself.  You still love her, and you were hoping she’d say 'let’s pick up again where we left off nine years ago’.”, Sam said, causing the Georgian to give a half-grin at his feet before nodding.

“Awright, yeah, maybe ah’m bein’ a li'l too kind 'ere.  Ah did expect somethin’… a-an’ only half'a that’s fer Lynn.  Ah miss 'er, more an’ more ev'ry single day.  So on Christmas evenin’, when we’d both hit the wine a li'l heavier 'n we wanted t'admit, she… came with t'mah room an’, well, ah ain’t never felt so young as when ah woke up an’ she were still there.  Hung over an’ a might confused at what tuh do now, sure, but she hadn’t run off.  So we got dressed an’ we talked.  She… asked me whut now an’ ah said that that were up t'her.  An’ she said she ain’t know what tuh make 'f it.  Admitted that she missed me too, that she felt happy that her life still included me.  Admitted that ah’m an excellent dad fer Lynn even if'n ah’m not 'round much.  …But she ain’t… she ain’t said she wanted me back or nuthin’…”, he finished with a somewhat miserable sigh, and suddenly Gabriel got a flash of an idea.

“Okay, t'sais quoi?  Here’s my cellphone.  Call her, right now, and tell her what you really want.”

“Dante-”, Grant started, groaning and looking at his hands so as to not have to glare at Gabriel, but the pyro shook his head.

“I’m not forcin’ you, Grant, mon ami, but life’s too short to be afraid. T'dois dire à la femme que t'aimes que tu l'aime – tell her ya love her  _now_  instead of when she’s stopped waitin’ for ya and settled with someone else!  Especially since t'as fait l'amour avec elle d'nouveau!” Gabriel fully expected Grant to either explode in his face or the man to beat a hasty retreat, but then Dell spoke up as well.

“Ah’ve got tuh take Gabriel’s side 'ere, Grant, pardner.  Yew an’ yer Carol got a lot 'f history t'gether, yeh have a kid – Carol ain’t blind t'yer devotion tuh Lynn, an’ she clearly likes th'attention yeh still give _'er_. If'n that ain’t a mighty sturdy basis fer a relationship, or a restart'a yer  _marriage_ even, then ah don’t know whut  _is_. Take tha’ there cellphone an’  _call yer dayum woman_.” Slowly, hesitantly, but not without careful deliberation, Grant took Gabriel’s cellphone from his outstretched hand and walked outside. As soon as the engineer was outside, Gabriel turned to Sam, not speaking but pulling her against himself gently, communicating without sound that he would never give her up – Sam’s answer was equally wordless and equally warm, what with her arm snaking its way around his shoulder and her fingers weaving themselves effortlessly into his hair.  Dell sighed and looked out the window, where the three of them could see Grant speaking, grinning broadly and gesturing through the air.

“…Dell, you and Grant are very close friends – and I get that it’s partially because you’re both engineers, but… I’ve always wondered what makes you so close.”, Sam suddenly said – Gabriel blinked, looking at his girlfriend in surprise and musing why she’d ask that question at this particular moment, something Dell clearly didn’t understand as well.

“Why d'yeh ask, Sam, li'l lady?  Curiosity?”

“Well, curiosity, and the fact that you and Grant treat each other like you’re nephews, but you don’t seem to see each other outside of here. I mean, if you were nephews, you would have stories of having grown up and visiting for Christmas or Thanksgiving, but you and Grant apparently met here and something, somehow, made you act like brothers.”  Gabriel suddenly found his eyes fasten on Dell as the man sighed, scratching the nonexistant hair on his scalp and then his stubbly cheek before nodding, clearly deciding to tell Sam and him about what had made him and Grant as close as they were.

“When Grant came on, 'bout five years after ah came on an’ 'round the same time ’s Lander, we talked.  He’s a more theoretically-oriented engineer, an’ we worked out a good arrangement with him makin’ the calculations an’ me doin’ some'a the more complicated maintenance on 'is sentries.  Anyway, we git tuh talkin’ an’ he tells me he went tuh Georgia Tech – an’ it jus’ so happened that mah pa, after 'is retirement from active field engineerin’ fer this 'ere comp'ny, went there tuh teach.  So ah asked 'im 'bout his perfessers, an’ sure 'nough he says 'oh mah lawd, yeh’re related tuh professor Conagher from Georgia Tech?!’  Turns out mah old man were 'is supervisin’ perfesser fer 'is first PhD, in material sciences.  …An’ then, when mah pa died, 'bout three years ago, Grant were a real great help t'me.  He were grievin’ fer mah dad too but he helped me write a real beautiful eulogy – like ah said, he’s more a theorizin’ guy an’ ah’m more practical.  …So there y'got it…”, he said, and Sam meant to speak up just as Grant walked back inside, grinning from ear to ear, causing Sam to merely pat her team’s engineer on the shoulder before turning an expectant look Grant’s way, Gabriel noticed as he followed her example.

“Donc?”, he asked, and his own team’s engineer sighed happily before nodding.

“Carol said she don’t know 'bout givin’ our marriage 'nother go jus’ like that, but she said 'yeh fool 'f a man, why couldn’t yeh jus’ say tha’ t'me a week ago?!’ an’ admitted she’s given things a thought too, an’ she wants us t'slowly give things a second try.  Heard 'er askin’ Lynn over the phone if'n she’d like t'see daddy 'gain over th'next holiday, havin’'im stay over at their house, an’ Lynn – bless 'er angel heart – didn’t say ’s much as  _scream_ her answer.  So… guess ah’m no longer a free man!”, he finished happily, causing Gabriel to chuckle and pat the engineer on the shoulder hard enough to make him stumble slightly.

“Bein’ single is overrated anyways, mon ami, welcome to the club!  Make sure ya make the Easter holidays  _count,_ t'entends?” Grant meant to speak up indignantly to that, only to be stopped by Sam who was laughing softly and shaking her head.

“Grant, that’s the closest you’ll ever get Gabriel to modesty, so take my advice and graciously accept it.  Besides, he’s happy for you – we all are.”, she said, to which Dell nodded.  Gabriel smiled and mirrored that gesture before raising his hand to the bartender and speaking loudly in the mostly empty bar.

“Yo, Gareth, bring us four cold ones an’ a platter of those snacks ya always tryin’ to sell, we’re havin’ a celebration!”


	42. I'm looking for somewhere that my journey can begin

“'Ey, Sam…”  Monday morning found the BLU pyro itching for battle somehow.  The holidays had refreshed her spirits and had given her the energy to start up another year of doing her somewhat odd duty again – and she had to admit that it was fulfilling work that drew on her strengths, not to mention she liked the perks that came with the position as well.  One of those perks had left for his own side of the battlefield only after a few promises for their evening that had had her blushing all the way over to the respawn room.  It had been Dell that had spoken to her as she met up with him just outside of his room, and it was again Dell that pulled her aside as the rest of the team was busy discussing their holidays amongst each other. To her surprise, he held a long, thin parcel in his hands, wrapped carefully in cerulean blue wrapping paper patterned with snowflakes in silver and gold.  “…Uh, ah figure yeh deserved a li'l sumthin’ fer all the hard work y'put intuh makin’ a display fer mah li'l ones. Missy agreed.  So… ah weren’t sure what t'git'chu, but ah hope yeh’ll use this an’ think'a me-”  The instant he handed Sam the package, she started unwrapping it, curious about what it could be. It weighed a considerable deal for such a thin package, and the contents of it rattled slightly against the sturdy box, so it was probably something metal.

When at last the last patches of duct tape and wrapping paper gave way and the lid of the box came off, Sam had to hold back a gasp.  There, laying in the box, was what looked like a personalized shotgun: it looked sleeker than the company-issued one she used, which was a bulky, machine-made thing with rough edges and no finesse in the handling, but this one… she was sure it had a hair trigger, and that the kickback wouldn’t make her shoulders and arms feel like they’d been hit with a sledgehammer. The midnight blue steel of the barrel and the trigger stood in stark contrast with the cherrywood of the butt and the pump-action handle.

“…Oh my god, Dell, this… this must’ve cost you a fortune…”, Sam uttered, looking the gun over and over, taking note of the fine details etched in the barrel and the fine woodwork on the handle, but the engineer shook his head and drew her out of her admiration with his soft chuckle.

“Here, a gun costs an arm an’ a leg, maybe, but not where ah’m from, li'l lady.  'Sides, this ’s mah own gun, ah jus’… cleaned ‘er up fer yeh.  Been a while since ah built any kind'f gun from the ground up – think the last time were when Grant asked me t'make 'im that Frontier Justice 'f his – y'know, the gun that tracks 'is sentry’s kills an’ supercharges 'is shots if'n someone’s fool 'nough tuh tear it down…”

“I vividly remember that gun, yes.”, Sam said, shivering as she recalled the incident when she’d gotten to know just how Grant’s Frontier Justice gun worked.  “You did amazing work on it.  …Did you make your own gun, too?”, she asked, suddenly feeling curious about the bulky gun that Dell used, but to her surprise the Texan shook his head.

“Naw. Missy don’t feel comfortable imaginin’ me usin’ a gun ah made mahself.  So ah promised her ah wouldn’t use a gun ah made mahself. This ’s one'a the standard issue guns the comp'ny provides. …'Tween yew an’ me, ah finetuned 'er a li'l, though…”, he admitted with a conspiratory wink at Sam, who smiled and nodded.

“Well, you didn’t  _make_ that gun, so you still kept your promise to your wife…”  Taking a second, she admired the gun in more detail, turning it over and over in her hands.  The steel of the barrel was meticulously etched with a pattern of flames on one side and with her name in Dell’s blocky, slightly jarring handwriting on the other side.  The butt of the rifle, on the other hand, was carved with delicate flowers with a more neatly written sentence in between the floral motif: 'Death is an angel with wings of fire, her breath is shotgun shells, and the scent of blooming roses is her cloak.’  “…It’s a beautiful gun, Dell, for as much as a gun can be beautiful.  I’ll cherish her.”

“Yeah, ah know, yeh keep yer weapons in top shape.  She’ll be in good hands with'cha, li'l lady.  …So, uh, she takes th'same kind'f shells as yer usual gun, loads jus’ the same-”, he said, pointing out the loading mechanism and the handle, until Sam placed her hand on his and gave him a stunning smile.

“I know, Dell, sweetie.  This shotgun looks the same as Grant’s Frontier Justice, and that one uses the standard issue shell too.  The only ones that use a different shell are Billy and Archie’s scatterguns, they use a larger gage.  …Ah, but thank you, Dell, this is one hell of a gift.”

“Awh, weren’t nuthin’, Sam, dahlin’…”, the engineer admitted, blushing softly – when Archie walked up to the two of them and spoke loud enough for the others in the respawn room to hear, the southerner’s blush grew even more profuse while his grin grew slightly more self-satisfied.

“Heya, Sam, what ya got the-  _holy shit_ , Dell gave ya a  _new damn gun_?! I’ve been buggin’ him, like, forevah for a new scattahgun an’ for you he just up an’ makes one?!  Not fair, hardhat!”

“Oh, Archie, don’t embarrass Dell so!  Besides, he only made me this gun because I made a complete and professional fireworks display for his children-”, Sam started: Dell clearly intended to speak up but refrained from doing so at the very last minute, and Archie accurately guessed what the man had been about to say.

“Dell made ya that gun 'cause he  _loves_ ya like ya his long-lost daughter.  Still, unfair.  I ain’t nothin’ but nice to ya, I do all kinds of shit for ya-”

“Like whut, Arch, son?”, Dell asked kindly; the scout looked for a second like he was about to speak and enlighten the engineer and his friend what kind of things he did to get on his good side, but suddenly he was grabbed by the back of his shirt and turned around roughly by Jane, who glowered down at the scout.

“Private, you are trying my patience!  If Dell did not make you a new scattergun it’s because he has no time for indulging your frilly fancies-”

“Yeah, 'cause he’s indulgin’  _your_ 'frilly fancies’…”, Archie said.  Perhaps the scout had meant it to be spoken softly enough for the soldier not to hear, but that failed: the entire respawn room went deathly quiet as Jane froze and Dell looked offended.  Not even Tavish’ half-drunk burps or Yaroslav’s soft hums sounded, and slowly everyone turned to look at the soldier and the scout, the latter of whom now looked like he wished for nothing more than the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

“ _What did you just say?_ ” The question was hissed more than spoken, a testament to how livid the soldier was, and Archie squeaked what sounded like 'sorry’ if you listened closely.  “What.  Did you.  Just.  Say?”, Jane asked again, emphasizing each individual word – to Sam, it was clear that the soldier was doing his best not to pummel the scout into next week for the overt disrespect he’d shown himself and Dell, and the engineer seemed to realize that as well, as he put a hand on the soldier’s shoulder.

“Jane, c'mon, pardner, he ain’t meant nuthin’ by it-”

“Quiet, truckie.”, the soldier said, though he’d clearly found new calmth again, making his next words to Archie still sound angry but his hands shake less.  “Well, maggot?!  I asked you a question!   _WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?!”_

“S-somethin’ I regret, ma- I mean,  _sir_!”, the scout said, figuring that he probably needed to butter the man up just a little to survive; true to Jane’s newfound calm, it worked, too, because the soldier looked appropriately mollified for a split second before his features hardened again and he glared at Archie.

“Well, unfortunately for  _you_ , private, I understood you  _loud and clear_ , and let me tell you right now, if you don’t already regret that little slip of your tongue, you’ll regret it  _very much very soon!!_  Arsène, you will take this sorry sack of scum behind enemy lines, he is tasked with taking out Grant’s buildings today!  Maybe after an hour or two of getting shot by an engineer and his toys, he will learn to appreciate the demands of our own Dell!”  Archie paled, Sam noticed, and Arsène looked a little less than happy as well, but no one protested and when the horn sounded, Jane barked out to Archie.  “ _MOVE IT_ , MAGGOT, what are you waiting for, an  _invitation_?!” Arsène jogged off, followed closely by Archie – the moment they were out of earshot for the soldier and the engineer, the two started talking softly.  The others moved out as well: Sam intended to follow Tavish, but Dell’s hand on her shoulder held her back.

“Hold on fer a sec, Sam, li'l lady…”, he said softly before turning to Jane, lifting his goggles to look the soldier in the eye.  Suddenly, Sam found herself blushing slightly and fidgeting with her flamethrower, not having bargained on how intimate the look Dell gave his friend and occasional lover was.  “…Jane, pardner, ’s maybe a li'l harsh tuh send in Arch’ with jus’ Arsaine ’s his backup, don’t'ch'agree?  Kid ain’t done no wrong thing.  Sure, he said ah’m indulgin’ yew, but ’s not like we kin deny tha’ anymore.  Tuh anyone.”

“Hrrrmmmph…”, the soldier groaned, lifting his helmet just enough to reveal his eyes, which were admittedly showing that he didn’t fully support the punishment he’d just meted out to the scout: his relenting was a visible process, and in the end he nodded, letting his helmet fall back into position and nodding.  “Fine, truckie – Sam, you’re spared for the offense for the first hour of battle.  Help Archie demolish Grant’s nest, tell him disrespect will not be tolerated a second time, and then report back to Dell for your usual duty as spychecker!”  Sam nodded and added in a genuinely meant salute to boost the soldier’s confidence a little – as well as to soften the fact that Dell had gotten him to give in yet again.  “Okay, now  _run_ , Sam-”

“An’ be sure tuh give th'REDs a li'l taste'a that new gun'a yers!”, the engineer added, pushing her out of the door as he himself ran out as well, already clenching his PDA in one hand and his wrench firmly in the other.  Grinning, Sam pulled her mask over her face as she ran off down a corridor at the side that was very infrequently used and that would lead her right to the REDs’ control point, where Grant was sure to be set up.  Her new gun felt light and yet secure in her hands, and she found herself suddenly eager to meet someone to test the new weapon’s accuracy out on, though she was confident that Dell would’ve tested the gun extensively before giving it away to make sure it would be perfectly balanced.  As it turned out, the unfortunate test subject turned out to be Billy: the scout nearly ran into her arms, making her first shot with the gun a little badly aimed, but the follow-through shot was spot on: the scout was flung back against the wall, bleeding profusely from a multitude of small wounds on his torso, and one last shot had him give a soft, gurgling gasp as pink foam bubbled up from his throat and formed on his shirt, showing his lungs were punctured.  “Mhhhmhmhmhm…”, Sam chuckled somewhat ominously, reloading her new shotgun quickly and then setting off towards the sound of a cloaking device and the unmistakeable muttered curses from Archie.

 

“Herr Dantan!”  Gabriel looked up from his work only when he’d added the last pinch of acetylsalycylic acid to the mixture in front of him: if he abandoned it before that, his measuring and meticulous portioning of the last half hour would be useless.  “Gabriel-”

“Wait a sec, Rudolf-”, he started, only to find that it wasn’t, for once, his own team’s doctor standing in front of him but Siegfried of BLU, which surprised him.  “…Doc Steinheim?  Somethin’ up with Rudolf?”

“Ach, nein, but… your psychiatrist ist here to zee you, und Rudolf has zent me vhile he talks to her about zhe reazon for her unannounced visit.  From vhat I’ve heard, she ist here to dizcuss vizh you zhe prison sentence you haff-”, the doctor said, and Gabriel perked up. He and Sam had only called his doctor that Monday evening, and after four days she was already there?  Then, however, the pyro bit his lip and cursed softly.

“ _Merde_ , in all the commotion I forgot to tell Rudolf, of course!  Y-yeah, so Sammy’s brother Damien asked one of his friends to look into my arson conviction and he found out that there’s a chance I could get my sentence suspended, but that I’d need to get doc Hayakawa to back me up an’ say that I’m really doing a lot better.  Ya know, get an actual professional’s opinion on whether or not I run the risk of lighting something the fuck up again…”

“Vell, zhat seems natural… so, you und Zamantha are tryink to get your prison sentence scratched?”, the medic asked carefully, watching as Gabriel sighed and stretched.  “Vhat for?”

“Oh… well…”, Gabriel said, suddenly feeling a little hesitant about confiding in the other team’s medic.  Grant and Rudolf, he trusted – nevermind that he hadn’t yet told them about Sam’s plan and how it’d been discussed in depth over the holidays, since it had conveniently slipped his mind – but he didn’t really know Siegfried that well. However, the medic seemed to already know, because the next second he nodded and spoke again.

“Ach, vhy do I ask?  Zamantha told me about your wish to study how to make zhe Feuerwerk und how she vishes you to be free to do so…  Vell, I can certainly undershtand zhat.  I vould go crazy if I vere in your place, herr Dantan.”  Gabriel rolled his eyes but relaxed.  It figured that his girlfriend would trust her own team’s medic, of course, and if she trusted the man, then he could bestow the same trust on him.

“Oui, it’s true.  I… Sam just figured I could use havin’ some kinda job prospect for when I’m done here, and I… kinda like the idea of using my chemistry degree for somethin’ that  _isn’t_ makin’ fucking pills and salves.”

“Is zhis due to zhe pyromania, Gabriel?”, the medic asked – Gabriel would’ve reacted somewhat annoyedly, but all of his aggravation with the other man flowed away when he added softly: “Lander had alzo been zhinking of zhe career involving fire – er hatte gern gemögen, die Feuerwehr zu verfügen.  Uh, I mean, he vould have liked to join zhe firefighters.  He vos vizh zhe firefighters before his pyromania vos discovered.”

“Yeah, I know…”, Gabriel admitted, shaking his head softly.  The thought of Lander was never particularly happy: the former BLU pyro was ripped from the world altogether too swiftly and in a much too brutal manner, and no matter how glad he was with Sam, he still missed the man that had been at once his best friend and eager lover.  Then, however, Gabriel remembered the more happy thought of all the hours he and Lander had spent planning their future, and effortlessly linked it with the hours he’d recently used to ponder the same subject with more deliberation together with Sam.  “Well, I considered that, too, for about a second before I realized I’d be more of a fuckin’ fire  _hazard_ rather than a good firefighter.  Nah, but learnin’ how to make fireworks is  _more_ than just feedin’ the pyromania.  I mean, did you see how parfait those fireworks that Sam made were?  She puts her heart an’ soul into those fireworks-”

“Ja, zhat she does.  So it izn’t zhat you vant to see zhe explosions, es ist about zhe making people happy?”, he asked, and Gabriel nodded.

“Oui! Heh, I’d be lyin’ if I said it wasn’t about seein’ a  _little_ fire in the sky, but that ain’t the only reason anymore.  I wanna  _share_ Sam’s fire, her metaphorical fire I mean, an’ I can use my chemistry degree again for somethin’ beautiful.  J'ai toujours aimé la chimie.”

“Now  _zhat,_ I understand, mein friend.  Vhen I first joined zhis team, I vas a little… disillusioned vizh zhe medical profession und I did not like zhe healing as much as zhe…  _hurting_. Zhat earned me a reputation.”, Siegfried admitted, smiling a little ruefully at Gabriel as the pyro nodded.  He’d seen the medic’s ruthlessness on the battlefield firsthand, having died by bonesaw or by syringe gun a couple of times.  “…Aber zhat vos in zhe beginning.  After a few years – und after Rudolf joined your team – I began to see zhat zhe healing vas still rewarding, und I started doing zhe small procedures.  Mending zhe broken bones, routine check-ups… und slowly I got back to being zhe doctor I had been back in Dresden.  Und I am glad zhat it happened.”, he admitted, causing Gabriel to grin and nod.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know if I actually want fireworks-makin’ as my job yet, but I definitely wanna learn about it, t'sais?  But, well, with my sentence, the company’s got me leashed like a fuckin’  _dog_ , ya know?”

“Ja, ich weiss’s, Rudolf hat-  I mean, Rudolf came to me to ask some advize regarding zhe pyromania.  …Anyvay, you should head over to your room now, Gabriel, Zamantha und frau doktor Hayakawa vill be vaiting-”, the BLU medic said, holding the door open ostentatiously and speaking a second later when Gabriel still didn’t rise: “If you are vorried about zhe pills you vere making, I zhink I can finish your vurk, herr Dantan-”

“Yeah, thanks, doc Steinheim.”  As he walked out of the medbay on the RED side of the base, he took a few deep, cleansing breaths to clear the scent of the chemicals from his nostrils and chase the lingering metallic taste from his mouth, and then he briskly walked to the separate part of the compound where he and Sam had made their home, hearing Sam’s light voice from the moment he opened the door.

“-and, well, I  _am_ happy for them, but I’ll be a lot happier as soon as all this court business is over-”  As if she felt him approach, Sam looked up the instant he walked through the doorway, a broad smile instantly erupting on her features.  “Ah, Gabriel, glad to see Siegfried managed to pry you away from your night job!  Doctor Hayakawa was just saying she was sorry for not calling before paying us a visit, but she figured that she shouldn’t delay in bringing us good news.”

“Ah,  _good_ news?”, Gabriel asked, looking from his girlfriend to his doctor somewhat ruefully, catching the older woman’s nod.

“Yes, good news, Gabriel. …I have to admit that that friend-of-a-friend of yours is one hell of a lawyer to come up with a giant gaping loophole like that.  I asked around in the Illinois State Board of Psychiatrists and my former supervisor, the man that motivated the psychological review I made of you, Gabriel… well, he said that the improvements you show combined with the fact that you’ve reached out to your family again and the fact that you’re in a stable, committed relationship… well, those made him very optimistic about your chances of successful rehabilitation into society.  He’s written up a formal advice for the court case and I’ve taken the liberty of submitting the request to the Illinois Central Court of Appeals in your name.  Your appeal case is in three weeks, on, uh, January 27th?”

“Ah, donc, three days after my birthday, I could be a free man again?”, Gabriel asked, grinning broadly, watching his doctor’s and his girlfriend’s surprised looks.

“…I forgot it’s your birthday then…”, the doctor admitted – Sam, on the other hand, shook her head.

“Gabriel, mon amour, your birthday is in three weeks and I didn’t know yet?” That prompted a blush out of him, if only because he suddenly caught himself thinking that it had indeed never come up as a topic between them.  They knew one another’s age, sure, but not their birthdays. Suddenly, he felt like he’d been focused on the wrong kind of thing, because there was  _bound_ to be other things he didn’t know about his girlfriend, or that she didn’t know about him.  “…Well, no matter, I know  _now_.”, Sam said, reaching for his hand and giving it a quick squeeze, showing that she’d seen his sudden change of mood from triumphant to hesitant – his heart fluttered and he nearly swept her off her chair into a passionate kiss but remembered at the last second that his doctor was still sitting there and he merely squeezed her hand back.

“Oui, faut qu'on parle plus tard, j'veux te dire mes pensées.  …So, wow, that’s real fu- ahem,  _fantastic_ news, doc Hayakawa!”, he admitted meekly, biting back the slur that had become so deeply ingrained in his speech pattern that he had to make conscious effort to keep his language clean, and the doctor nodded, clearly grateful for his effort.

“Yes, you can say that again – it feels like a great big euphemism to me, putting it down to 'fantastic news’, even.  My former supervisor is… well, he’s the psychiatrist that evaluated you back when you’d first been arrested, surely you still remember him.”  Gabriel nodded gravely, rolling his eyes.  He remembered every last second of those days and weeks in vivid detail, including the surly, coarse psychiatrist that had been sent down by the DA office to examine his mental state.

“Merde, oui – yeah, I remember him.  Seemed like a douchebag back then, real fils de garce.  If I remember correctly, I told him to get a good lay to wipe that sour look off his face-”

“Y-yes, he, uh, mentioned that to me.  With a  _smile_ nonetheless. He’s, uh, mellowed since those days.”, she said, and Gabriel grinned, nudging Sam with his elbow.

“Heh, look at that, he took my advice!  That, or age really  _does_ mellow people out a li'l.  I sure hope so, the guys here at base ain’t prime examples.  …Anyway, yeah, I know what you’re sayin’, doc.  He was really convinced back then that I was a hazard to society, an’ for him to now say that I’m doin’ a lot better… hell, that’s cause for celebration!  Uh, I don’t got anything except some beers-”, he offered, but his doctor shook her head and motioned for the papers laying on the table she and Sam were sitting at.

“Thank you for the offer, but I just came to drop off the papers and tell you how to prepare.  Any proof you have of your traveling to Canada to meet with your family again, add it to the stack.  I’ve brought the report doctor Riley wrote up and the last psychological evaluation documents, from when you asked for a readjustment of your medication, along with the papers from doctor Hartmann regarding how well you’ve adjusted to your new medication regimen.”

“Heh, I’ve always wondered what ya alwas write down when I’m talkin’ your ears off!”, the RED pyro admitted, reaching for the stack amid laughter from Sam, causing him to react a little more loudly than he’d intended: “Quoi?  T'es pas curieux, mon ange?”

“Sure I’m curious, mon amour, but at least try to  _pretend_ you’re not going to read that report front to back to front the second your doctor turns her back…”

“It’s okay, I can certainly understand his curiosity – and it’s another of those good signs I talked about.  Before, Gabriel was very, uh, to use a French term, very  _au-fait_ about his prison sentence and his mandatory psych evaluations.  He didn’t much care to ask what I was writing down.  The fact that he now feels self-conscious about it all means he’s on the road to recovery, at the very least.  …Now, Gabriel…”, she said, rising from her chair and addressing him in person, causing Gabriel to instantly feel as if she towered over him instead of the other way around, a sensation he’d always had when it came to his psychiatrist.  “…this prison sentence being suspended or even expunged would mean that you’re a free man again, but it doesn’t mean that you’re given a license to misbehave-”

“J'sais, je sais…”, he said a little irritably, annoyed more at the fact that the woman felt like she had to chastise him pre-emptively than at the fact that the woman chastized him.  Then, however, he grinned and tacked on: “Sam’ll keep me on the straight an’ narrow if I don’t manage it by myself, and believe me, j'veux pas la décevoir…”

“T'me décevra jamais.”, Sam said simply, giving him the most open and genuine look that he’d ever seen on her features, and he smiled back at her in return with a fire that radiated right from his heart.

“Well, there were days, not too long ago, where I wouldn’t have believed it possible, but I believe it now.  Gabriel, Sam, you can leave the logistical side of things to me: I’ll contact Mann Co. to get the both of you a day’s leave for the court case.  You just focus on gathering as many testimonies from your fellow teammates, from people in the village you regularly interact with… heh, perhaps even that brother of yours, Sam-”, the doctor said, to which Sam nodded, at which point she and the doctor said their farewells, allowing the doctor to turn to him again.  “Gabriel, I sincerely hope that all of this work won’t be wasted.  I hope the judge sees what all of us see, and that’s a changed man.”

“I hope so, too, 'cause it’s the damn truth.”, Gabriel simply stated, causing the doctor to nod and add one last remark quietly, causing Gabriel to chuckle in silence.

“…Also, uh, try to clean up your language a little, that’ll make the judge a little more benevolent.”  She moved outside – as the door leading back into the BLU side of the compound opened, Gabriel could see Dell standing there, as if he’d been waiting for the woman to come back outside, in the split second before Sam spoke and he turned to her again.

“Well, it’s all going a lot faster than I’d anticipated.  I only called Damien to ask him if he could help a month ago – not even a month ago, in fact… and now there’s already a court date settled and people are telling you to be on your best behaviour if your sentence gets suspended-”

“ _If_ it gets suspended.”, Gabriel said, quelling the sudden bout of optimism that welled up inside of him as well as it did in Sam, who was less successful about repressing the urge to be wildly positive.

“They all say 'if’ but they’re thinking 'when’, you can just  _feel_ it… oh, Gabriel, mon âme, you’re so close to being a free man again.”

“Well, legally free, at any rate.”, he said, finally managing to make the eagerly gleeful look on Sam’s face falter though her smile didn’t disappear.

“Mostly free, then.  Legally free, emotionally free-”  That made Gabriel snort and shake his head.

“I ain’t emotionally free, not by a long shot.  I’m emotionally tied to you, mon ange.  An’ I don’t ever wanna be free of you.”, he said, walking over to his girlfriend and wrapping his arms around her as he kneeled by her side, not caring that the floor hurt his knees.  The kiss she gave him in reply would make anything irrelevant.

 

“…Sam, li'l lady?”  Samantha’s head shot up from the workbench, where she could’ve sworn she had only a heartbeat ago had been working on another fireworks display.  But the only scent she could pick up in the former respawn room was that of gunpowder from her explosives and shotgunn shells: not the tangy scent of copper sulfide or the slightly acrid hint of potassium perchlorate, which she’d been sure she had been using.  Had she dreamt it, then?  “Suhmantha, yew still in there, dahlin’?”, Dell’s voice issued from outside again, and she groaned.

“Uh, yeah… I’m sorry, I-”

“Yeh fell asleep, righ’?”, he asked kindly, pulling open the door and letting some of the artificial light from inside fall on the rocks outside, showing that it was already pitch dark out.  “Heh, ain’t no shame in tha’… but Gabriel were gittin’ worried.  He went t'see Grant an’ ask him 'bout whether yeh had extra work t'day, an’ Grant came t'me, an’ ah-”

“And you came here. That’s… well, that’s sweet of you, Dell, to worry. I guess I was just more tired than I thought-”

“Y'ain’t the only one.  Jane fell asleep in front'a the TV set, only woke up when Archie got intuh 'is game an’ started hollerin’ at them other online players that they sucked.”  Sam managed a weary grin and a faked wince.

“Does Archie still have a laptop?  Or never mind his laptop, are his brains and his blood all still accounted for inside of him?”, she asked, prompting her team’s engineer to chuckle and nod.

“Had t'hold Jane back a li'l, especially when Arch’ were a darn fool an’ started teasin’ us 'cause Jane, course, were sittin’ with  _me_. In the end, Jane shouted his head off right intuh Archie’s ear – think ’s gon’ be ringin’ in his ears fer a li'l, but that ain’t nuthin’ that Billy ain’t gon’ be able tuh fix-”

“Billy’s over with Archie, huh?”, Sam asked – her look had to show her surprise, because Dell suddenly nodded with a glance that was utterly confused.

“Uh, yeah, didn’t yeh know?  Since they spent their holidays t'gether, they asked if'n they kin spend their nights on base t'gether ’s well, an’ we didn’t see no problem with that.  …Ah thought…”, he said, suddenly shaking his head and biting his lip, holding back his next comment: Sam could guess it as though he’d spoken it anyway. Dell figured Archie would’ve told her, but the scout hadn’t. Suddenly, she felt a little put off.  Why  _hadn’t_ Archie told her?  They were friends, weren’t they?  “…Look, Sam, li'l lady, there’s prob'ly a real good reason why he ain’t told yeh yet. Y'were busy with preppin’ that court case thing fer Gabriel, an’ with'cher explosive-makin’…  And-”

“Oh, Dell, no, don’t… don’t make excuses for it…”, Sam sighed, shaking her head as she felt more and more miserable each passing second.  “I… hadn’t even realized how much I’d neglected you guys.  Only seeing you over the weekends is really not a lot of time to keep up to speed with what’s going on in your lives…”

“Aw, S'mantha, don’t make it sound like y'ain’t spendin’ no time with us neither…”, Dell said, pulling her into a warm and wordless hug: she was confused why the engineer would be so emotional with her until she felt a wet patch form on the part of his sleeve her cheek rested against and she realized she’d been crying softly.  A second later, she realized the reason for her tears as Dell spoke. “…Ah figure ’s been about a year since yer last job fell through, huh?  ’s Enough tuh make any gal, even one ’s strong as yerself, feel lonely an’ abandoned.  'Course, the sheeyit that happened to yeh after were even worse.  …But… but Sam, li'l lady… yeh got tuh know y'ain’t really alone, awright?”

“Certainly feel alone sometimes.”, she admitted with a sigh, prompting a similar defeated sound from her friend and self-appointed surrogate father, who gently pulled her away from the workbench the next second.

“Come along then – don’t yeh worry, ah’ll let Gabe know yeh’re over at BLU side fer a li'l much-needed team time, tell 'im tuh maybe have a nice li'l talk tuh Grant or Rudolf ’s well over at RED side.  Y'ain’t gotta work  _every_ night. Now, whut d'yeh say to a li'l evenin’'a television watchin’ an’ snoozin’ with yers truly?”, he said with a grin, his chest visibly puffing out in an attempt to get Sam to cheer up, and the pyro had to admit that it worked.  She managed a half-grin as she put an arm around the engineer’s stocky build, feigning a look of reluctance though her tone betrayed just how much she actually looked forward to the suggested pastime.

“Oh, well, since you insist, Dell… heh, what television show were you planning to watch?”

“'Hill Street Blues’, they’re airin’ reruns on NBC1.  Ah used tuh watch tha’ there show ev'ry time mah pa were home – heh, he always thought ah were playin’ with ma Meccano boxes until ah were talkin’ tuh my ma one day 'bout it an’ didn’t hear him comin’ home.  From then on, he stopped buyin’ me Meccano an’ started askin’ mah  _opinion_ 'bout things.  Said ah were gittin’ too old fer toys anyway. …Ah, mah old man were a real piece'a work…”, he said as he and Sam walked back to the lights of the base, sounding as nostalgic as he looked, with his eyes unfocused and his lips quirked up in a grin.  “…Y'know, when ah were a teenager, ah acted up a li'l.  Told 'im 'pop, ah don’t wanna be an engineer like yew, man’, after buggin’ 'im tuh teach me all about 'is job ever since ah were a li'l Engie – y'know whut he said?  He said 'well, that’s a real great idea, Dell, y'ain’t gonna like the work anyway.  Yew go on, be a doctor, or a teacher, or anythin’ yeh wan’ be.’  Taught me that there ain’t no escapin’ destiny.  Ah were  _meant_ t'be an engineer an’ follow in 'is footsteps, no matter how much ah tried tuh deny tha’.  An’ yew, Sammy, sweetlin’, yeh were  _meant_ t'join our team an’ be the most darn amazin’ pahro we ever had.  Yeh-”

“Oh hey, Sam!  What, did Dante finally  _break_ his junk bangin’ ya?”  As luck would have it, Archie stood by the doorway leading inside, looking like he’d been waiting for them.  The second he saw Sam, surprise fleeted over his features, but a second later, as he made the lewd comment, he grinned eagerly, and Sam rolled her eyes.

“Gabriel’s probably waiting for me to get back to him, but Dell promised a bit of television-watching and 'team time’ – I happen to  _miss_ you guys.  Even you, you big dolt.  So come on, what do you say?  Or can’t you miss Billy long enough for one episode of 'Hill Street Blues’?”, she teased, and Archie blinked.

“Hey, I’ve been meanin’ to tell ya about Billy an’ me bein’ allowed to bunk together!  Did Dell spill tha great news already?”, Archie asked, giving a glare at Dell that got the engineer to sigh and pat the younger man on the shoulder consolingly.

“Yeah, ah did – but only by mistake, pardner, ah thought yeh’d already told Sam 'bout it.  Seein’ as she’s yer friend an’ everythin’…” The youth blushed and muttered something that could be either a retort or an apology to her, Sam was unsure – but then Dell grinned and patted Archie’s shoulder a little harder with a broad grin: “But why don’t'chu go 'head an’ tell her th’ _other_ great news?”

“Oh, yeah!”, Archie said, grinning from ear to ear as he turned to Sam, walking ahead of her as the three of them enteredthe BLU recreation room where they found Jane sitting in the sofa, glaring at Dell when he entered until he noticed Sam was with him.  Archie didn’t pay the man any heed as he spoke on, clearly eager to share his good news with Sam, who was becoming more and more curious by the second. “…So me an’ Billy talked about what I’d do when I get outta here, and when I said I wanted ta study engineerin’, like, to be a real engie-”

“You say that like Dell isn’t a real engineer, private!”, Jane ground out from the sofa, causing Archie to quickly tack on an addition more for the benefit of the soldier than the engineer, who looked at Archie with a kind smile.

“I mean, a real engie  _just like Dell_ , ya know.  Anyways, we were talkin’ about it an’ suddenly Billy goes 'ya know, ya live, like, right next to MIT, why don’t ya try an’ apply there?  You’ve got tha brains for it!’ an’ we were, like, for real lookin’ into it.  But I figured 'no way, man, I can’t get accepted inta MIT for, like,  _evah_  in my life’.  Which kinda sucks because there ain’t no bettah place to study engineerin’ than MIT-”

“Arch, son, ah ain’t been t'MIT an’ ah’m a decent engineer.”, Dell said, and now Archie apologised in earnest.

“Yeah, I know, sorry, man.  …Anyway, fast-forward ta us returnin’ back here an’ Jane flippin’ his helmet ovah me 'disrespectin’’ Dell.”

“That is  _'mister Doe’_ to you,  _private Jessup_!”, the soldier bellowed, but this time Dell reacted, his voice soothing.

“Jane, pardner, he ain’t meant no disrespect tuh yew – ’s about time yeh started treatin’ Arch’ like an _equal_ , anyway, he’s just ’s much use tuh our team ’s yew are.”

“Hey, thanks, har- I mean, Dell, man!”, Archie said, grinning from ear to ear – he resisted the urge to tease the soldier with his victory in favour of continuing his explanation to Sam, who smiled when he winked at her.  “So, yeah.  I talked ta Dell while you were joinin’ Tav’, Arsène an’ the big guy for that last cap, about how much it sucks that I ain’t gonna have a chance ta study at MIT, an’ he asks me 'why not, son?“…”  It was an uncanny impression of the engineer’s southern drawl, to the point that Jane looked up from the television screen in surprise, and Dell himself suppressed a chuckle when Archie continued.  “…So, like, I told him that, with all'a tha crap I got up to – my time in juvie, my days here…  It weren’t gonna mattah that I finished high school properly, like, an’ with real fuckin’  _good_ grades in math an’ physics an’ all of those otha science subjects.  And ya know what he suddenly suggests?”

“Uh…” Sam could guess, judging from the flash of pride that crossed Dell’s face and the half-disgruntled groan that Jane heaved in the sofa, but she feigned confusion.  “I don’t know, what did he suggest?”

“Dell asked me if I’d like him ta, like,  _teach_ me! Like, ya know, gimme a head start on the advanced math subjects an’ all!  So he’s been givin’ me an hour of his time every day since last Monday-”  He was somewhat rudely interrupted by a snort coming from the soldier, who looked at Archie as though he’d drowned his puppy. Dell sighed again, shaking his head and moving to sit over with Jane for a quick heart-to-heart while Archie spoke in a hushed tone interspersed with silent chuckles.  “…Yeah, Helmet Man isn’t a big fan'a mine, 'cause apparently I take away precious time from him. Not a big loss, if ya ask me, all they do together is bang-”

“Hey, they don’t just 'bang’, Archie, they’re actually friends first and foremost.”, Sam said just as quietly as Archie had spoken, nudging him with his elbow: "They’re  _not_ Gabriel and me, and they’re also not Arsène and you.  They’re, uh… “

“We’re gonna watch 'Hill Street Blues’ now.  Sam, yeh joinin’?”, Dell finished her thought, and she nodded, patting Archie on the shoulder.

“I’m happy for you, Archie, and I’m sure that you’ll get into MIT with Dell’s help.  He’s the finest 'egghead’ I know.”, she said, ignoring Jane’s grin and instead leaning in to give a light, sweet kiss on the engineer’s stubbly cheek.  “Now, Dell, you’re going to have to share all of that painstakingly built-up expertise in this series, I’ve seen it once or twice when I was younger but I’m afraid I could never remember anyone’s name-”

“Heh, sure thing, Sam, li'l lady!”


	43. Or give me one more try again

“ _Oh, mais c'sont des nouvelles très bonnes!”_  Gabriel grinned as his father sounded overjoyed on the telephone, more so since it mirrored so perfectly how he felt.  It was only one week until the twenty-seventh, only one week until his prison sentence could be suspended, just  _one week_ until what could be his first day as a free man again. His heart fluttered at the mere notion that all that stood between him and his freedom were six days of suspense and waiting, one judge, and a mountain of paperwork that he and Sam were currently scaling with more ease than they’d expected.   _“Donc, c'est Samantha, ta belle femme, qui a arrangée tout cela?”_

“Oui – ou, alors, à peu près.  Son frère, Damien, a contacté un d'ses amis, gars qui s'appele Rupert Walberg et qui est un avocat très connu, apparamment.  Il a découvert que j'ai peut-être la chance de faire suspendre mon temps en prison-”

“ _Faut que tu les remercie, Gabri’.”_  Gabriel chuckled: it was typical of his father to think of something like thanking the men responsible for his windfall.    _“…T'veux dire ces nouvelles extraordinaires à Belle toi-même?”_ , he asked next, unable to keep the hopeful tone out of his voice, and Gabriel rolled his eyes before answering.

“Ah, j'pense bien que j'peux pas t'arrêter d'le dire à Belle si j'la dis pas moi-même dès qu'on a dit nos bonsoirs… ouais, t'peux la dire. La dit que je l'aime, et Lisette et David aussi.  …Mais maintenant, comment ç'va avec  _toi_ , papa?”

“ _Ah, t'sais, comme ci, comme ça… j'ai construit – ou, c'est à dire, j'ai_ aide  _à construire un nouveau veranda chez ma voisine, madame Lentrier. Belle dame-”_ Gabriel laughed lightly before he even realized he did so: there could be no denying that there was something lofty in his father’s tone when he spoke about his new neighbor.   _“Hey, c'est quoi d'ridicule? T'as pas vu comment j'ai travaillé dur-”_

“Oh, mais d'ça, j'suis sûr, papa… donc, dis-moi, a-t-elle t'donné de la chocolat chaude après?  Où peut-être une p'tite goutte?”, Gabriel found himself gently and lovingly teasing his father, who didn’t seem to catch on just yet why he was being asked that question.

“ _Elle m'a offert d'la chocolat chaude, oui, mais j'ai refusé, je l'ai pas fait pour ça-”_

“Hah, ouais, bien sûr, t'as pas fait pour  _la chocolat chaude_ , j'en suis sûr.”, Gabriel teased – now, finally, his father seemed to understand what he meant.  His grin translated into his words enough for his father to sound pleased with himself as he answered.

“ _Alors, je l'ai pas fait seulement pour sa belle sourire, Gabri’ – et t'peux pas si taquiner ton vieux père bien aimé!  …Mais quand même, elle a me d'mandé de rendre visite avec mes deux enfants ‘charmants’ quand t'es de nouveau chez moi, donc t'vas la voir vers Pâques…”_ Gabriel allowed himself a couple more chuckles before sighing and speaking to his father soothingly.

“Alors, bien, j'veux la voir moi-même, j'pense bien que t'as trouvé quelqu'un qui te fait heureux de nouveau, et ça me rends bien heureux.  T'le mérites bien.  …Alors, à part de construire le nouveau veranda chez madame Lentrier, quelles nouvelles d'autre?”

“ _Peu des nouvelles, j'suis désolé.  J'ai vu Lisette et David de nouveau – ils n'ont pas cessé d'me demander d'inviter toi et 'tante Samantha’ pour ses vacances prochaines.  …Oh, mais si t'veux bien des nouvelles… Annabelle et Louis vont avoir un troisième p'tit-”_

“Quoi?!”, Gabriel exclaimed – his father’s audible wince from the other end of the line prompted him to tack a quick apology on to his follow-up question.  “Mes excuses, mais  _quoi_? T'rigoles?  Belle est quarante et un, c'est bien… ehm… bien  _vieille_  pour s'avoir une bébé de nouveau.”  His father heaved a sigh on the other end of the line before answering.

“ _…Annabelle le pense aussi, mais Louis n'veut pas, eh, t'sais, l’_ alternative _. Et j'vais pas mentir, avoir une troisième petit-fils ou p'tite-fille…”_  The older man sighed, however, and Gabriel could  _feel_ the way he shook his head even if he didn’t see his father.   _“…Belle m'a dit qu'il y a d'la risque que cette p'tite va être née avec un… défait…”_

“N'en pense pas.  Et Belle n'en peut pas penser aussi.  Une risque n'est pas d'chose fixée.  Cette bébé peut être parfaite.”, Gabriel quickly said, ignoring how hopeful he sounded even to himself.  He felt faint, knowing that his sister was a  _doctor_ by training and that her cool logic was probably spot on… knowing that she considered  _not_ having a third child because of how old she was and that she was  _right_ to consider it…  “J'veux dire, c'est pas que j'veux un nouveau neveu ou une nouvelle nièce coûte que coûte, mais… sois optimiste.”

“ _T'a jamais été optimiste, Gabriel… c'est quoi ça, quelque chose d'autre qui s'est changé à cause de Samantha?”_ , his father asked, dropping the previous subject readily and almost with blind abandon, something Gabriel eagerly followed him in as he chuckled and allowed the mood to lighten again.

“Ouais, quoi, t'ne trouves pas agréable ou quoi?  J'suis un homme nouveau grâce à elle-”

“ _Et t'dois rester comme ci, Gabriel – elle t'a amélioré, je le jure. …Ahh, donc, c'est déjà le moment pour moi pour manger, madame Lentrier m'a fait une casserole qui m'fait couler l'eau dans la bouche-”_

“Je pense bien que madame Lentrier elle-même…”, Gabriel started, not bothering to finish the thought and chuckling as his father huffed in fake annoyance.

“ _J'dois parler avec Samantha de nouveau un peu, la demander quoi est-ce qu'elle trouve de toi en taquinant ton père bien aimé aussitant que maintenant…  Alors, Gabri’, mon cher, bonne nuit-”_

“Toi aussi, papa, et j'suis vraiment heureux que t'as quelqu'un qui te fait la vie un p'tit peu moins solitaire…  Alors, j’t'appele la semaine prochaine pour t'informer comment il s'est passé-”

“ _Même si t'es encore…  M'appele quand même, okay?”_ , his father asked, sounding somewhat emotional, and Gabriel bit his lip before answering in a soft, warm tone.

“Oui, t'sais bien que je veux que vous sachent… alors, à la prochaine, papa.  Bon appétit.”  His father repeated the greeting before ending the call, and Gabriel sighed deeply as he flipped his cellphone shut again, shaking his head.  It was all so much to digest all of a sudden: his father’s fragile, newfound happiness, his sister’s predicament, his own situation…  Digging his hands through his hair, he slowly started organizing facts in an attempt to make more sense of things.

“…Gabriel? Is everything okay?”  Sam’s voice, soft and worried, made him look up again to see that his girlfriend stood next to him, her hair falling in wet tresses around her face to show she’d already showered.  “I… you took longer than expected so I thought you were enjoying talking to your father, but… you look like it wasn’t at all pleasant… what happened?”, she asked carefully, prompting a sigh from him.

“Oh, non, I mean, it was nice to talk to my dad, yeah, and he was happy for me, and he told me that one of his neighbors maybe isn’t uninterested in him and he in her…”

“But?”, Sam guessed – he could’ve kissed her at that moment, just for understanding him so well that he didn’t even have to say that there was something else.

“…But he also told me that Annabelle’s enceinte de nouveau.”  Sam reacted just as he had: she blinked, then slowly licked her lips, and then sighed, nodding.

“Okay, yes, I can understand how that’ll get you down.  She’s already over forty, then having another baby isn’t really the joy it is at age thirty anymore… so, how are things?  Did she, you know…  _lose_ the baby?”

“Oh, non, it… that’s not it.  But just… ma soeur, elle est un médecin, t'sais, et elle sait bien les risques-”

“She… well,  _wow_ …” Sam bit her lip and nodded slowly, looking saddened by the thought as well.  Then, however, she spoke with deliberation: “…But maybe that’s for the best, you know?  At over forty, the risk of complications probably isn’t just huge for that baby.  Annabelle probably knows those odds better than you or I or your father do. …And what is your brother-in-law’s take on things?”

“Louis loves the idea of a third baby.”  Now Sam winced in earnest, and for the longest while there was a heavy silence between Gabriel and her, one that weighed on Gabriel’s peace of mind far more than his previous gloomy thoughts had.  He inhaled deeply, intending to speak up again and say that it was something Annabelle and Louis would have to decide – but Sam beat him to it by a fraction of a second, with almost the exact same words he’d been mentally mulling over.

“…Well, whatever they decide, it is  _their_ decision, we can only respect whichever direction they choose to go.  …Oh, Gabriel, mon amour, you’re wonderful for worrying for them.  For  _wishing them the best_. Annabelle knows that, I’m sure.”

“Oui, bien sûr.  …But still, I’m glad papa decided  _he_  would call her to tell her about my trial, j'pense que j'pleurerais quand j'la parle maintenant…”, Gabriel admitted, smiling shyly at his girlfriend.  “….Okay, so I still gotta shower-”  To his surprise, Sam smiled and picked her own towel back up from the back of the chair she’d been leaning against – his own shower equipment still lay in the bathroom since she’d taken it along.  “Wait-”, he started, only to get interrupted by Sam’s wink, preceding her airy and yet infinitely inviting words.

“I think you’ll need someone to keep an eye on you, with all that’s on your mind…”

“If you’re gonna keep an eye on me, you’re gettin’ the best damn view on the base – all for you.”

“Heh, well, that  _was_ kind of the idea, mon amour…”, Sam said, beckoning for him to follow her by nothing more than a swish of her hips that was nevertheless just as commanding as either team’s soldier’s voice when they barked their commands; with a broad grin that promised trouble, Gabriel followed his girlfriend to the showers.

 

“…S'mantha?” For the second time in the new year, Sam looked up from her workbench at the sound of her name spoken with a southern lilt to it. This time, however, it was not her own team’s engineer that came looking for her: instead, Grant lifted the heavy shutter door, getting his slighter frame through it with ease before allowing it to fall shut again.  “Ah, figured yeh’d be here.”

“Considering that I’m here every evening working for everyone, to make sure we all have enough ammunition for a next day’s fight, I imagine you didn’t have to look for me for a long time.”, she said with a wink at the man before putting down the newly made grenadewith careful deliberation in the box labeled 'Tav’.  “So, what brings you to my humble abode, Grant?”

“Oh, jus’… wanted tuh tell yeh yer gift fer Dante arrived on base. Courier came tuh RED side with it jus’ when yer boyfriend were talkin’ tuh Rudolf 'bout some new salve he’d made fer 'im an’ Siegfried.  Y'were real lucky ah were jus’ walkin’ tuh the rec room t'watch some National Geographic Channel – took it off'a tha’ there courier’s hands 'fore Gabriel could git it.”  Grinning, he produced the package, and Sam laughed lightly.

“Well, thank you for your kind rescue, Grant, you are very right.”  She took the package from him and carefully opened it to find the small, rectangular item she’d ordered, not entirely oblivious about the way Grant kept trying to look over her shoulder to see what it was she’d ordered for her boyfriend.  “…Was there something else you wanted to ask?”, she teasingly questioned, prompting a soft groan from the Georgian engineer.

“Ah know ’m not s'posed tuh be all curious, but ah am.  Whut ’d yeh buy Dante?  …If'n ah’m allowed tuh see.  An’ if'n it ain’t nuthin’, yeh know,  _personal_ …”, he added quietly, looking extremely put off at the thought, prompting Sam to place one hand on her hip and fix the RED engineer with a very reproachful look.

“Grant, if you think I’d buy that kind of thing as a  _birthday present_ to Gabriel…!”

“Don’t pretend y'ain’t at least  _considered_ it.”, Grant answered, and Sam bit her lip, unable to lie outright to the man in front of her.  Fortunately, he didn’t look like he would berate her for it, instead turning to the much less embarrassing side of the topic at hand.  “…So, whut  _did_ yew buy 'im?”

“Oh, nothing much… a new cellphone.  He always looks jealous of mine and he still has that old _behemoth_ of a thing that needs to be charged every night and that doesn’t fit properly into his pocket… so I splurged and bought him a smartphone.  This thing is like a pocket-sized mini-computer, really.”  She grinned when Grant scratched his head in surprise, looking at the box in her hands.

“Well, ’s far as ah knew, Dante were always pleased with 'is old cellphone. Said it made 'im feel liberated 'cause it were simple.  …Then again, this’s the old Dante we’s talkin’ about, the one that drank 'is gin like water an’ that screwed 'round every dayum night… who knows, maybe yeh changed 'im in that way too.”  Then, he fixed Sam with a kind look, looking around before adding: “…Uh, y'mind terribly if'n ah talk to yeh fer a bit, Suhmantha?  Ain’t got a lot 'f opportunities tuh really have a calm conversation with'chu, whut with Gabriel always hangin’ off'a yew an’ Dell an’ th'others from BLU hoardin’ yer time when yer lover ain’t-”

“Grant, Gabriel is more than the man I take to bed with me.”, Sam started, only for the Georgian engineer to laugh softly.

“Ah meant tha’.  He ain’t yer fancy-man or yer bedwarmer, ah know tha’. Y'only gotta see yeh walk back t'base  _once_ tuh see ’s more than lust 'tween yew an’ him.  The way he keeps 'is arm 'round yer shoulders – the way he brings 'is arm back up 'round yer shoulders after he’s squeezed yer behind, too, fer that matter. …Yeah, ah know ’s darn serious 'tween yew an’ him.  …So ah take it y'ain’t opposed none t'a li'l talk 'tween yew an’ me?”

“Why would I object to that?”, Sam said, smiling at the engineer as she motioned around the workshop.  “Grab a chair and sit, Grant, talking is always easier to do when you can relax…”  She stretched wearily herself as Grant grabbed one of the chairs from off to the side.  “…So, what makes you want to have a nice quiet talk with me now?  Did Gabriel misbehave?”

“Heh, naw, S'mantha… well, not as far ’s ah know, at least.  He’s been showin’ model behavior, ’s a matter of fact.  …Naw, ah jus’ wanted tuh ask yew how yeh feel 'bout Gabriel’s trial.  Ah always thought tha’ there prison sentence he’s got were set in stone – ain’t no way tuh change it, ah always figured.  Ah sure hope ah were wrong. Gabriel…”  He looked furtively at the door at that moment before turning back to Sam with a slightly apprehensive look on his face. “Look, ah’m tellin’ yew this in confidence, don’t yew go tellin’ this tuh anyone that ain’t got tuh know… but at first, ah were the middle man 'tween Dante an’ the comp'ny, an’ the one that got tuh listen to an’ record 'is mental status.  Hated it.  Ah tell yew now, if'n ah had t'hear  _one more time_ 'bout how happy he were screwin’ around with Lander… but, well, then the thing with Lander happened an’ ah… saw a side'a Gabriel that ah didn’t really reckon he had.  He were heartbroken by whut happened – Lander weren’t his boyfriend, but he were his lover an’ his friend. Ah… never understood how he could keep 'em separate.  Never understood the dayum 'friends that screw 'round’ thing… anyway…”, he quickly interjected, noticing that he was getting sidetracked, “…ah saw how wounded he were by Lander’s death, an’ the suspicion he got from everyone… an’ ah started carin’ a li'l more 'n ah were supposed tuh fer the company’s sake, y'know?  Started really list'nin’ t'him when he were talkin’ about Lander, 'bout the others. …Ah heard things 'bout Graeme, Rudolf an’ Chris that ah elected tuh forget, but ah heard other things that ah followed up on… like when he said Theo from yer team had 'is eye on Archie an’ the scout didn’t have any interest back, an’ Gabriel mentioned that Theo weren’t real good with takin’ 'no’ fer an answer… ah kept a look on tha’ there camp-crazy sumbitch.  When it became real easy tuh spot that Archie were havin’ 'imself a li'l somethin’ with Arsayne an’ that ol’ spook'a yer team didn’t look like he tolerated anyone else makin’ a move on the scout, ah quit – but only then.  …A-an’ ah reckon ah became a friend'a Gabriel’s.  But  _don’t go 'round tellin’ him that ah care_ , awright?  Ah’d never hear th'end of it…”, the Georgian engineer said with mixed apprehension and the beginnings of a threat, and Sam laughed lightly.

“Grant… Gabriel already  _knows_  you’re his friend.  He’s known since you were the first to give up mistrusting him.  And if he didn’t know it yet then, he knew the moment you didn’t protest when I stayed over at RED side when Dell and I had… well…”  Even now, when her transgression against her friend had been forgiven and forgotten by both him and her team’s soldier, she still couldn’t bear to actually voice that she and Dell had been  _bitter_. However, Grant turned the conversation into another, completely unexpected direction.

“…Ah need t'ask yew that, too.  Yew an’ Dell are real close.  Ah know he ain’t look at'chu like the other guys'a yer team-”

“The guys from my team don’t look at me funny.”, Sam said a little defensively, and Grant rolled his eyes.

“Aw, S'mantha, yew wouldn’t see it, maybe, but yeh’re a mighty attractive lady, y'are.  Ain’t no man in the village, or in both teams, that don’t look at'chu like a hungry cat looks at a itty bitty mouse. 'Course, it don’t happen when Dante’s with'chu, an’ like ah said, ’s rare tuh find yew without 'im.”  Sam sighed and looked at Grant incredulously, which prompted the engineer to speak on: “’s only five exceptions.  Me, 'cause ah got Carol on mah mind; Billy, 'cause he ain’t int'rested in girls none; Jane, 'cause tha’ there old rocket-fer-brains ain’t look at no women 'cept fer his wife; Yaroslav, 'cause yew ain’t’ _his_ kind'a girl; an’ then Dell, 'cause yew an'him ’s like family.  Ah suppose, in a way, y'are his substitute fer whut he’s had t'miss out on fer twenty years'a his life.”  The RED engineer scratched his head and muttered under his breath, probably not intending for Sam to hear: “…He nearly  _had_ all'a tha’, too…”

“What do you mean, he nearly had all of that too?”, the pyro questioned, and Grant blushed instantly, shaking his head and raising his arms.

“N-nuthin’! Ah didn’t mean nuthin’ by it!”  His sudden avoidance and the way he looked away told Sam that, whatever he’d meant by it, was  _not_ an easy subject, so she rolled her eyes and spoke in a soft, calm, slightly worried tone.

“…Grant, whatever this 'nothing’ is, you’ve got nothing to fear from me, okay? I… if it’s personal, something Dell told you in confidence-”

“It weren’t  _Dell_ tha’ told me, li'l lady… i-it were his pa.”  Now Sam was truly intrigued: she knew, of course, that Grant had known Dell’s father at his university as a professor, but what kind of highly personal and  _embarrassing_ information had the man shared with a stranger about his son?  It seemed that Grant could read her mind, because he spoke even more quietly now, his voice barely above a whisper: “…Perfesser Conagher an’ me, we talked a lot.  At first purely 'bout engineerin’ an’ such, but as time went by an’ he helped me with more'n more'a mah papers, we started talkin’ like friends.  Or maybe the more accurate term were 'like father 'n son’.  Dell treats me like ah’m his long-lost brother 'cause his father loved me like ah were his own, really.  …Anyway, Dell’s a couple'a years older 'n me, so he were a couple'a experiences  _wiser_ 'n me, too. One'a which perfesser Conagher told me he wouldn’t even wish on 'is worst enemy.  He…had 'imself a ladyfriend back at A&M, girl that studied applied mathematics jus’ like he were.  They were close,  _real_ close. More friends 'n lovers, though, even if'n they tried it out couple'a times.  Well, one'a them times had t'be up tuh scratch anyways, 'cause this girl got pregnant.  Dell were… well, he didn’t love 'is friend like he loves Missy, that’s fer sure, but he promised 'er tuh do right by 'er an’ their li'l one.  He were talkin’ about workin’ on th'oil fields a li'l, git 'imself some money tuh support their baby…  It were a girl, too.  They named 'er Samantha.”  At that point, Sam gasped – how could she not, if Grant had just revealed that Dell had actually  _had_ a daughter named Samantha?  However, she knew the story had to end in grief, because he hadn’t mentioned the fact, and he didn’t have a daughter her age, so she motioned for Grant to continue, which the man did with little to no hesitation.  “Dell were proud'a her, visitin’ her every day in the hospital… an’ then, one day, Dell’s friend took li'l  Samantha fer a walk an’, well…”  The engineer sighed and shook his head sadly.  “…They got hit by a car when they was crossin’ the street.  Samantha were killed instantly, an’ Dell’s friend died a week later in hospital.  She came 'round 'fore the end an’ told Dell it weren’t his fault, he did everything perfectly, he were such a perfect man… she told 'im she were sorry. Dell was…”

“Oh, I can’t even imagine how much pain that had to bring him…”, Sam admitted, looking at her hands and biting her lip for a second. “….I… don’t worry, I wouldn’t ever mention this to anyone… oh man, poor Dell, he’s such a great guy, he doesn’t- he didn’t deserve anything like that happening to him.  Luckily he found Missy and he’s very happy with her…”, she said, and Grant smiled.

“Yeah… an’ in a way, it were actually li'l Samantha that brought him an’ Missy together.  He went tuh a grief counsellin’ group at A&M an’ he met 'er there.  She’d jus’ lost her pa to cancer, an’ she took it real bad… when she heard whut happened tuh Dell, she started talkin’ to him outside'a the group ’s well, goin’ fer coffee with him, an’ then goin’ on dates with him… even when he started workin’ here.  They… had this spark, y'see?  A spark him an’ that ladyfriend'a his ain’t never had.  She understood 'is grief.  When they had Jenny, Missy s'gested namin’ her S'mantha, even, but Dell said he ain’t wanted tuh name his new li'l girl after the li'l girl that weren’t meant tuh be.  …He ain’t never forgot tha’ li'l girl, though, celebratin’ her birthdays in 'is head… An’ then… a li'l bit 'fore it were s'posed tuh be her twenty-fifth, yew came on BLU an’ yeh turned out t'be called S'mantha too…  Dell were… uh, how kin ah put this  _kindly_ …”

“Oh, Grant, you can  _say_ Dell was a wreck, I would be surprised if he  _didn’t_ cry his bloody eyes out… dear god…”, Sam admitted, her eyes prickling conspicuously and her lip feeling as though she’d been chewing it like bubble gum.  “…Oh,  _Dell_ … I’d give him an extra tight hug when I see him next, and tell him I know and I love him all the more for it, and tell him I’d gladly let him unofficially adopt me-”

“N-naw, don’t do tha’, S'mantha, he might jus’  _kill_ me fer tellin’ yew.  He don’t really appreciate me knowin’… but yeah, ah s'pose he were a real mess when he came tuh visit me when yeh left the base.  An’ two weeks later, when yeh  _came back_ tuh base, he were… well, he didn’t know where tuh look.  He looked at the ground whenever he spoke t'yew fer a good week – 'course, it were easier fer him when yew wore yer gear.  Aw, but when yeh had yer troubles with Dante, he… he suffered right 'long with'chu, like any dad would fer his li'l one.  An’ then… well, yeh know whut happened better 'n ah do.”

“I, uh, fainted, and Dell jumped into the line of fire –  _literal_ fire – to keep Gabriel from respawning me while I was unconscious. …Well, by that time, I already did care about him.  He was… kind to me, during all the trouble with Gabriel.  Kind, and wise.  …And you were sweet too, Grant, both to Gabriel and to me.”  Sam meant to speak on and tell him that she appreciated everything he’d done for her and her lover, but then she caught sight of the clock hanging off the wall and she nearly jumped up off her chair.  “Bloody hell, look at the time!  I need to get back to Gabriel before he comes looking for me and finds you stealing my time, Grant, dear.  …It was nice talking to you…”, she added when Grant hastily got off the chair, prompting a kind smile from the Georgian engineer.  He brought his hand to his head to tip his hardhat to her as well, but when he discovered he wasn’t wearing it anymore, he still completed the gesture with a somewhat shy grin.

“Were real pleasant, S'mantha.  Tell Dante ah ain’t sorry fer keepin’ yeh here.”  That made Sam laugh lightly, shaking her head.

“Might be better if I tell him you  _are_ sorry for it, he gets jealous of anyone that gets to spend time with me because he feels he’s got dibs on my everything.  But thanks for the sentiment.”  She opened the sliding door for Grant and then walked outside herself, locking the door and heading for the base after Grant, who hadn’t waited for her.  Watching his surprisingly large strides, Sam found herself pondering their conversation and resolving to show her affection a little more the next day, just so her friend knew that she cared without catching on why.

 

Gabriel felt nervous – more nervous than he’d felt in his entire life, excepting maybe the moment when Sam had had her moment of malaise after their two-week falling-out.  The mere thought of that period, however, caused him to instantly dismiss the thought, as always.  Gabriel felt more nervous than ever before.  He scratched the back of his neck again.

“ _Merde… putain,_ this tie’s too fuckin’ tight, I can’t breathe…”, he whispered to Sam, who sat next to him in a dark blue woollen sweater and a pair of jeans that looked like they weren’t jeans at all.  She placed her hand on his to calm his nerves a little, which worked like a charm, and spoke in an equally soft tone.

“That’s just a thought, mon amour, just breathe deeply and slowly, okay? Three counts in, hold for one count, three counts out, hold…”  He followed her advice and got a look of surprise from doctor Hayakawa, who sat one row behind them.  However, none of them were given any time to think much on Gabriel’s nervosity, let alone comment on it further: the bailiff rose from his desk chair and read out from his papers.

“Next on the roll: case nine-five-three-eight-seven, the people versus Dantan, for a suspension of the twenty year sentence.”  As he sat down again, Gabriel rose, his throat feeling more than a little constricted all of a sudden, which made him mentally curse the tie again; however, he refrained from voicing the swearwords anymore, not since the dozen or so people in the courtroom looked at him, Sam and his doctor as they walked to the front of the room, past the little wooden gate separating the benches from the actual courtroom. Vaguely, Gabriel took note of the horse-faced secretary that sat at the ready to type out the proceedings and of the fact that the state prosecutor was still the same woman as had been at his initial trial, but then Sam gently nudged him and he sat down.  The judge, however, was different: instead of the elderly man with the gray hair around a bald pate that had presided over his trial, the judge now was a woman perhaps ten years older than him, with wavy hair tied into an austere knot at the back of her head.  She still had a loud voice, but it was warmer and infinitely more kind, Gabriel noticed as she spoke up.

“Doctor Hayakawa, you’ve applied for a suspension of mister Dantan’s twenty year sentence, of which he’s currently served half, due to significant improvement in his behaviour, correct?”, she asked, her aged face showing a pensive frown, and doctor Hayakawa nodded.

“Yes, Your Honour. I have presented Gabriel Dantan’s case to the directors of the Illinois State board for psychiatric evaluation, and they all agree that he’s shown significant improvement in his behavior over the last six months, with several sound indications that a relapse is highly unlikely.  For example, he asked for a higher dosage of Seroxat, his impulse-controlling medication, himself.  Also, he has been in the employ of Reliable Excavation and Demolition – which, as you know, is a company under Mann Co. – for nearly ten years as a pyrotechnician, where he received on-site training in fire safety. His work conditions have been reviewed by mister Grant Howard Dillinger, who is an engineer, while his medical records during his employment by Mann Co. have been kept under the supervision of doctor Rudolf Hartmann.  I’ve included the official reports of both men in the files submitted to the court.  You will also notice that he is not alone here today – this woman, Samantha Tennant, is his colleague from Builders’ League United-”

“If I understand correctly, that is the  _competing_ company.”, the judge asked, and doctor Hayakawa nodded.  Gabriel knew she’d petitioned the Administrator-General for a partial disclosure of the company structure – only to reveal, under the strictest confidentiality, that RED and BLU weren’t really competing companies – but she’d either gotten denied or the documents were there but nobody was allowed to even speak about their contents.  His psychiatrist then answered, cutting off any other thought the pyro could’ve had.

“Indeed – but miss Tennant is not here as a member of the competing company today.  She is also a pyrotechnician, and she also happens to be Gabriel’s girlfriend.”  The judge carefully raised an eyebrow but did not comment, showing to Gabriel that his second suspicion was most likely true: she did know how the situation was but wasn’t allowed to discuss it in the courtroom.  Doctor Hayakawa nodded minutely before continuing in a more businesslike tone: “They have been in a committed relationship for most of the past six months, showing that mister Dantan is able to carry that kind of emotional connection.  But last, and certainly not least, he’s been in contact again with his father and sister in Canada – as a matter of fact, he and miss Tennant spent their last Christmas there and intend to go back for their Easter holidays. …All this indicates that Gabriel has the intention of becoming a full-functioning member of society again, that he wishes to be in control of his disorder, and that he wishes to leave the past behind him.  I have also been so bold as to research what happened to the building that burnt down as a result of his 'attack’ and I’ve discovered that the owner sped up his plans to convert the abandoned shopping mall into a housing project because the demolition works were no longer necessary.  So, all in all, if Gabriel has progressed this much as a person and a pyromania patient, and if the grievance to society has already been repaired in his first ten years of sentence, then surely a further ten years of sentence is unnecessary.”  The judge nodded firmly before turning to the state prosecutors, a young man in an impeccable suit and a slightly older woman in a crisp two-piece outfit.  Gabriel recognized the woman, who had aged remarkably well, even without the judge addressing her.

“Miss Lyan, as you were the state prosecutor for this case ten years ago, what is your opinion in light of mister Dantan’s recent improvements?”  The woman cast a look at Gabriel – for a split second, he could feel her eyes flit over his form, not appraisingly but surprisingly lightly, and then she looked back at the judge again – and spoke with a firm voice.

“Your Honour, State asked for a twenty-year sentence ten years ago because there was no evidence that mister Dantan had a stable life or indeed the intention of starting a stable life here… however, in light of his long-term employment, his clear improvement in social and psychological welfare and his evident wish to overcome his condition, the State has no problems with a suspension of sentence – though we would ask for obligatory monthly psychological evaluation for a period of at least one year if mister Dantan’s sentence is suspended. My younger associate, mister Parker, has looked into the matter more in-depth for me – mister Parker, if you please?”  The younger man stepped forward, his eyes moving over Sam appraisingly but looking back to the front when Sam raised an eyebrow and grabbed Gabriel’s hand, both clear indications that she didn’t appreciate being ogled. His voice was surprisingly light and energetic, Gabriel found.

“The fact that the State Board for Psychiatric Evaluation has decided to support doctor Hayakawa on this matter is satisfactory for the District Attorney’s office to support a suspension of mister Dantan’s sentence – but even if a relapse is highly unlikely, we must make sure it doesn’t happen.  We therefore would like for doctor Hayakawa to continue treating mister Dantan, for a mandatory period of at least one year, to ensure the best possible results.”  The judge nodded again, looking at Gabriel intently – but when she spoke, she spoke to Sam.

“Miss Tennant, as his competitor and his girlfriend, you’ve probably got the best possible view on how he functions in his work environment, and how his relationships with his colleagues are.  Barring any facts that you are prohibited to disclose to the general public…”, she said, making it  _crystal clear_ to everyone in the courtroom that there were facts that none of them were supposed to speak about, like the fact that RED and BLU weren’t really enemy companies, “…tell us about how he functions at his workplace.”  Sam nodded gravely and spoke calmly, her choice of words simple yet effective.

“Gabriel functions well, to be brief.  Our line of work gives him access to gasoline, flares, chemicals, fires, and generally any kind of implement you’d need to start a fire.  But he has not used any of those to start any fires in the eight months since I started on the BLU team.  His control over his pyromania isn’t perfect – no kind of impulse control disorder is, doctor Hayakawa explained to me – but he doesn’t wish to cause any damage to anyone and he goes out of his way to make sure that he does not.  Every precaution he  _can_ take, he  _does_ take. Grant – mister Dillinger, I mean, his team’s engineer – keeps a good eye on him in battle, and he does so as a  _friend_  and not because he’s obliged to by the company.  His team cares for him and wishes him well – and he returns the sentiment.  When his team’s scout and my team’s scout started a relationship, he was the first to jump into the fray for  _both_ of them and defend their romance.  When mister Dillinger spoke about his ex-wife and how he might still love her, Gabriel was the first to tell him to  _talk_ to the woman about it.  He has warm and cordial friendships with several of the men on his team, relationships in which he is emotionally invested.  …And outside of his work, he admittedly doesn’t have a lot of friends, but he feels that that’s a  shortcoming.  Gabriel is far from antisocial and reclusive.  He’s well-liked by the people that know him.  I was by his side when he called his father again, and when he called his older sister.  The joy, the overwhelming gratitude to still have a place in their lives… he did not feign those.  He genuinely feels that he still has something to offer to the world, he still feels that he can redeem himself in other ways than serving time in prison for what he did.  And so do I.”  For a long time, the courtroom was silent, and then the judge nodded slowly before addressing him.

“Mister Dantan.” Gabriel rose from his chair, ignoring the way his stomach had suddenly decided to take a day off though he could feel how clammy his hands suddenly were.  Then again, he mused, this decision would make or break his  _life,_ so he was allowed to be nervous.  Sam squeezed one of those clammy hands of his tightly in hers and flashed him an encouraging smile that gave him just enough mental steadfastness to look at the judge instead of at his feet.  “In light of this re-evaluation, I am going to suspend your sentence.” He nearly cheered but managed to bite his lip and keep it in, allowing the judge to continue.  “In lieu, I am imposing an obligatory psychological evaluation for the next year, to be done monthly by doctor Hayakawa as appointed by the state board of psychiatric evaluation.  I don’t know the particulars of pyromania, but if doctor Hayakawa sees any signs that point to a relapse, or if you commit another offense within the year, your sentence will be carried out in full.”  She sharply tapped her gavel on the table, showing that the case was closed; the bailiff showed them out and then walked back to his desk.  Gabriel took very little notice of it all: he was focused on suppressing the impulse of grabbing hold of Sam, swinging her around with a happy whoop and kissing her breathless in joy.  As soon as they were standing outside and the doors of the courtroom had closed behind them, however, he did just that, laughing softly as Sam gave the softest surprised squeal before he pressed his lips to hers and kissed any comment away from them.

“I, uh, take it that means you’re happy.”, his psychiatrist said next to him, causing him to mutter 'mmhmm’ through the kiss – Sam wanted him to properly answer the woman, however, and pulled away from him to give him a loving and mildly berating look that got him to grin sheepishly back at her.

“ _So_ happy. I… I hadn’t dared think that it was possible… but thanks to you – Sammy and her brother and his connections, and you, doc… oh merde, j'me sens vraiment  _liberé_! I really feel like the weight of the world’s off my shoulders now. But most of all, I feel like it’s a sign – the world still trusts me.  I still got a spot in this world.  …So, who’s up for a celebration?”, he asked, and his psychiatrist smiled at him.

“Well, a nice cup of celebratory coffee?  All this nervous excitement is making me long for a caffeine shot.”  Gabriel looked at Sam and smiled.

“Alors, coffee and cake for celebration?  If I remember it right, there’s this fuckin’  _amazing_ bakery that has a coffee corner just  a block away – and if I don’t remember it right, there’s a sweet tearoom close to the station. Wouldn’t wanna miss our train back to work.”, he said – at the mention of work, doctor Hayakawa suddenly perked up.

“That reminds me!  Gabriel, the Administrator-General has asked me to tell you they’ll be bringing the paperwork about your contract change-”

“W-wait, quoi?  Contract change?”, Gabriel said, surprised by the additional information – Sam, however, clearly understood more than he did, and her next words, directed to him, were spoken with joy and tender care.

“Well, your contract was linked to your prison sentence – it got suspended now, so you’ll need a _proper_ contract. Like me.  I’ve… doctor Hayakawa mentioned it to me and the first thing I did was call the company and tell them that your contract needed to have the same terms and conditions as mine minus the 'physical incapacity to perform’ clause they put in.”  Gabriel gave her a look of non-understanding, that got her to explain further with a slight blush: “…I have a clause in my contract that says it’s voided if I turn out to be pregnant.  Because the respawn and the fact that I regularly get shot and blown up can’t be good for a developing baby.”  Gabriel relaxed again and nodded slowly.

“…Your contract, c'était négocié par Damien, non?”, he asked, grinning when Sam nodded.  “Then a contract similar to yours is the best damn contract I’m ever gonna get.  So come on, let’s go and grab us some coffee to celebrate!”, he said, taking a tentative step towards the exit of the courthouse, unsurprised when Sam and his psychiatrist followed him without any further remark.

 

“…Sam?”  Gabriel’s voice sounded oddly hollow in the showers, Sam mused as she turned around to him, seeing him grinning at her as she did. When he didn’t speak up after ten seconds of outright lewd staring, she spoke up lightly.

“Did you have a question, mon amour, or wasn’t half an afternoon spent in bed enough yet?”  For a second, Gabriel looked at her in confusion, and then he put his hand to his heart in a display of mock drama.

“T'veux plus que j'te regarde, mon ange à moi?  And ya  _know_ not even an entire week spent in bed puts out my fire.”, he said with a wink that she all too readily agreed with.  Then, however, he cast his eyes down and spoke in a more serious tone: “…But I did have a question, mon âme… I mean, I… wanna know your opinion about this before I go on and open my fuckin’ mouth.”  Sam meant to tease him, but when he hesitated, she bit her lip and turned morose as well.  Gabriel had been in miraculously high spirits ever since his court case had turned out to be a huge success, and the rest of the week had seemed like a celebration to her.  He was happy, his team was happy… then what could he be so worried about?  Clearly, Gabriel sensed her unease, because he added quickly: “C'est pas quelque chose de mauvais ou d'tristesse, j'le jure, mais… c-c'est juste… I…  _not everyone knows the particulars about my prison sentence_ , and I wanna treat the guys to a drink to celebrate that I got out of jail on good behavior, but that means I’ve gotta come clean to everyone today-”

“And you’re afraid that they’ll stop treating you as they have been for the past few months?”, she asked, guessing what had her boyfriend so apprehensive – his nod confirmed that she’d guessed correctly, and his next words made it clear what about the experience made him hesitant to speak the truth.

“…I mean, I know Grant isn’t gonna treat me any differently, an’ Rudolf knows everything already.  Billy ain’t gonna peep about it either, he’s… well, he found out about it some-fuckin’-how.  You’re the first one I told about it honestly from day one.  Or, well, from the first day I thought 'oh hell, she should know about cette partie d'ma vie foirée’-”

“Gabriel, can I be honest with you?”, Sam asked, interrupting him and grabbing his hands at the same time as she spoke, causing her boyfriend to look down at her in surprise and prompting him to nod slowly.

“Sure…” His voice was apprehensive, she found, and she smiled encouragingly as a result as she voiced her thoughts on the matter.

“I… think most of the men, on both teams, know about your prison sentence.  Why you have it, I mean, and where you’ve been, and why you’re getting semestrial visits from an offsite doctor…”  She’d already anticipated Gabriel’s annoyed and worried groan, speaking on with the same encouraging smile: “…but that means you’ve got nothing to worry about.  If the men all  _know_ about it already, there’s no reason why they’d treat you any different, is there?  And surely the fact that a judge deems you worthy of a second chance means you must be worthy of a second chance, right?”

“…Ouais, 'course…”, Gabriel said slowly and hesitantly, his eyes still aimed at her hands and not her face, prompting her to gently squeeze his hands and add more reasons for him not to be afraid.

“And if it’s Theo and Chris’ reactions you’re afraid of, you  _know_ they’re just pigs and their opinion only matters if you  _make_ it matter, right?”

“How did you…?”, Gabriel said, fixing her with a look of utter bemusement before slowly nodding, the corners of his mouth finally twisting upwards in a careful but clear smile.  “…Okay, donc, ya make an excellent case for me not to worry.  And… well, I know the guys probably pieced two an’ two together over the years, or maybe Grant told Dell an’ Dell told your guys… it’s not like it’s a fuckin’ secret anyways…  Heh, it’s never gonna be a fuckin’ secret anymore.  It’s all in the past now!”, he said happily, squeezing her hands back and then pressing a light kiss on her lips, evidently taking great care not to pull her close – it was a clear sign that he didn’t trust his body at a moment like this, with elation coursing through him again and the both of them naked, and it was enough to make Sam step back and switch her shower off again.  Gabriel followed her example readily, towelling off briskly and with a renewed energy in his movements.  “…Oh, and I know the thing I wanna give the guys to celebrate!”, he said when they were back in their bedroom, picking out their clothes for the evening – Sam had just been stepping into the horrible pleated skirt that she’d sworn she’d never wear, and she paused for a second to look at her lover and ask the question he obviously wanted her to ask.

“What, pray tell, might that be?  I know it’s a drink, but which drink-”

“I’m treatin’ all of our teams, you an’ me included, to a glass of Honeydew!  Oh merde, Gareth is gonna fuckin’  _soil himself…_ ” Imagining the bartender standing there, looking at Gabriel with an expression of disbelief, close to tears, made Sam laugh heartily and shake her head, speaking on as she put on her blouse.

“Oh, Gabriel… well, I suppose it  _is_ your party, and we didn’t yet celebrate your birthday, either, so that’s two reasons for you to force one of your favourite drinks upon those poor and unsuspecting men-”

“Yeah, an’ it’s not like anyone is ever gonna say no to free booze. Especially not Billy, little shit likes his shots.  …Heh, Gareth isn’t gonna speak a word to me the rest of the evenin’-”

“Oh, Gabriel, that man is the closest thing to a genuine friend you have, don’t upset him.  As a matter of fact, treat him to a drink as well-”, Sam suggested, getting Gabriel to grin and nod good-naturedly.

“Hell, I was plannin’ on tellin’ him to take one on me too.  He’s put up with me for ten years already, he’s probably over the fuckin’ moon with my good fortune as well parce que ça signifie que j'lui taquinerai moins…  Okay, am I lookin’ good enough for you to never leave my side all night?”, he asked – normally, he sounded boastful when he asked it, but now his voice had a timid note to it, and Sam answered in kind.

“You look every bit like the handsome, charming man you are, mon amour. …D'you want me to drive us?”, she asked, reaching for her car keys, but Gabriel shook his head.

“Indulge with me, mon ange – I’ll bear the cold with you by my side and a couple of glasses of Honeydew in my system.  Et j’t'réchaufferai dès qu'on est ici de nouveau.”

“I’ll bet you will.”, Sam said, grinning and humming when Gabriel’s hand ran down over her back to her behind and then back up.  “But now, we should get going or-”

“Bien, oui…”  Gabriel handed her her knee-length coat that she slung on before stepping into her winter boots and zipping them up, making sure maybe one fraction of an inch of her knees was still exposed to the wintry cold – not that it was the chill in the air she was worried about.  There was a light dusting of late snow in the air, every miniature flake of it that touched the exposed skin of her face feeling like a miniature needle pricking her ever so lightly.  Yet each time she looked next to her, to Gabriel, she caught him smiling back at her and the cold sting of the snowflakes mattered less. After what seemed like a much more quick and brisk walk as usual, they arrived at the bar, where the rest of the men were already present, talking to each other and ordering their meals from the waitresses.  As soon as she and Gabriel entered, the men looked up and then, after a nod or a smile aimed their way, returned to their conversations.  Dell and Grant, however, motioned for them to come over.

“Suhmantha, Gabriel, we thought y'weren’t comin’ over here anymore t'night, yeh’re a li'l late-”, Grant started, but Dell shook his head and smiled warmly at the BLU pyro.

“ _Grant_ thought yew two were gon’ skip dinner an’ jus’ stay in yer bed, but  _ah_ knew yew two were gon’ come over here.  …So, Dante, pardner, whut kin ah git'chu?  A glass'a tha’ there vanilla gin yeh like?”

“Oh, non – today, it’s  _me_ treating  _all of you_ to a drink!”, Gabriel said with a confident grin, causing Dell’s smile to falter just a little and Grant to look over at Sam in apprehension, more so when Gabriel spoke up loud enough for all the men of both teams to hear: “Écoute!  You guys, I’m buyin’ all of you a drink to celebrate!  Gareth,  _eighteen_ glasses of Honeydew, don’t be stingy with the juice – make 'em good!  And since you’re such a great sport, grab yourself something hard as well!”  The bartender looked at Gabriel uncannily like Sam had imagined it: wide-eyed, slack-jawed utter surprise and desperation reigned supreme for a moment, until Gabriel deposited two crisp hundred dollar bills on the  counter and said in a softer tone: “Yeah, uh, don’t worry about the change either, you’ve put up with enough shit for all those years…”  Then, the bartender nodded and started lining up glasses for the requested cocktail.  Meanwhile, the rest of their teams looked at Gabriel and her in apprehension, Sam noticed: Gabriel noticed as well, but where he’d usually become annoyed by the attention and snap at them, now he managed to smile serenely and explain further: “Don’t worry, Honeydew  _is_ a cocktail, but it’s not gonna kill ya – it’s batida de coco, vanilla gin, vodka and cuarenta y tres, which is vanilla liqueur, mixed with cream and poured over two ice cubes.  Sweet as fuck but it’s mostly creamy, not mostly liquor.”  Theo made a face at that, showing he’d been expecting to get more of a kick out of the offered drink, but John’s reaction seemed to hold true for most of their teams.

“…Well, I say a free drink is still a free drink!  …So, private – I mean, Dante, what’s the occasion?”

“Donc, you guys all know that Sammy an’ me were excused from battle last Thursday, right?”, he said, and the men nodded, muttering 'uh-huh’ to prompt Gabriel to continue.  “…Well, that was for a court case.  You guys all know I was in prison, an’ that I got pyromania… and you probably all know that I was in prison for arson, too…”

“Yeah, we  _kinda_ guessed that.  Well, that, or indecent exposure, wouldn’t put it past ya.”, Jane said, gaining him a none too kind elbow in the ribs from Dell and a snort from Gabriel – but again, Sam was glad to see, her boyfriend’s serene smile did not fade.

“Okay, so long story real short… Sammy figured that maybe I had a shot at getting my prison sentence cleared with the way my life’s improved over the past year.  She got her brother on the case, who got some of his friends to help… and we went to court and we  _won_ the case.  My sentence got suspended, and if I don’t do any really bad shit in the next year, I’m one hundred percent legally free again!” For a few long, breathless seconds, the entire bar was deathly quiet, and Sam could  _feel_ Gabriel’s nerves tensing like overstretched guitar strings, but then the least likely candidate to react did so, surprising all.

“Donc, mon ami, faut qu'on fête – we should celebrate dees!”  Arsène had spoken – as far as Sam knew, her team’s spy and Gabriel had shared nothing but the occasional casual banter in passing, making his reaction all the more admirable to her.  He then further astounded the gathered men by raising his glass as the bartender started passing around the cocktail Gabriel had ordered them.  “To Gabriel – and a leetle bit to Samantha too, she deed très bien – good luck to you, mon ami, as zee free man!” The rest of the men were startled from their stupor as well, some raising their glasses with a smile matching the BLU spy’s, some merely nudging their head at Gabriel.  To Sam, what mattered most was the way Gabriel relaxed again, and the way he grinned when Grant clapped him on the back and spoke to him.

“Well, then, Gabriel, guess ah ain’t gon’ need t'have more heart-tuh-hearts with yew, huh?”

“Aw, Grant, ya sound like you’re gonna miss them…”, Gabriel said – it was a testament to his calmth that he just sipped the cocktail instead of downing it in one, which he’d been close to doing until Arsène had defused the situation.  Faintly, Sam saw Arsène raise his glass in her direction and she smiled gratefully back, nodding minutely to show she understood that he’d seen Gabriel’s tension and had intervened accordingly.  “Heh, but if ya do miss 'em, you don’t need an excuse to  _talk_ to me, ya know.  Sammy’s team claimed her Thursday evenings, I’m more than happy to spend some time with you guys in a non-annoyin’ way.”

“Gabriel, that’s… that’s a real great idea, pardner.  Ah’m countin’ on findin’ yew in our livin’ room Thursday evenin’ then!”, the engineer said, grinning broadly as he instantly launched into a lengthy and avid explanation of several old movies he wanted to show Gabriel because he thought the pyro would find them interesting or funny or 'jus’ plain beautiful’.  Sam found her boyfriend squeezing her hand softly as he listened and nodded at the right moments, bringing a grin to her features.  It was clear to all that Gabriel felt good and that he was doing good – and that made her feel good in turn.


	44. And let the devil take over

“…Gabriel, son, ’s time fer me tuh hit the hay…”, Grant said, stretching as he got up from the sofa, prompting Gabriel to tease his friend just a little as they walked back since they had indeed been the last two left in the living room and as such the last two men to walk around in the corridor.

“Ya know, Grant, mon ami, you really need to lay off the ice cream next summer-”  He ducked a half-hearted swing from the engineer and laughed softly along when the man reacted in kind.

“Ah’m layin’ off tha’ there ice cream only when yew lay off'a S'mantha, Gabe, pardner  Now git – bet'cher Sam’s waitin’ fer yew tuh git back t'yer room.  It’s already late, an’ yew still got a day full'f fightin’ ahead'a yew-”,he then gently admonished, to which Gabriel reacted with a good-natured roll of his eyes and a soft snort.

“Bien,  _maman,_ I’ll go. Good night, an’ see ya tomorrow, awright?”

“Heh, sure thing, Gabriel!”, the engineer said, waving and heading to his room, leaving Gabriel to head out to the door leading into the room he and Sam shared.  However, he paused for a second at the window, looking outside at the moonlit battlefield.  Before he knew it, he’d slid open the window, as he’d always done when he hadn’t yet known Sam and the walls had felt like they were closing in on him yet again, and had slipped outside with ease.  The night air was freezing cold, but Gabriel didn’t mind it much, lost in thought as he was.

“…Why did I come out here?”, he muttered, unthinkingly walking across the battlefield that felt somehow alien in the night now – but it hadn’t even been a year ago that he’d last walked the road he was taking, a road that still felt familiar for his feet to walk.  It was the road to the spot that had been singed into the rock five years before, a place where he’d stood so often weeping or drinking or half asleep and in need of comfort and consolation…  “Pourquoi est-ce que j'suis ici?”, he asked in a whisper as he halted.  He sank to the ground, which felt unrelentingly cold even through the three layers or so of cloth and wool that separated his behind from the rockface. He sighed as he contemplated that he knew the answer.  The movie he’d watched with Grant, which had been called ‘When The Rain Stops’ – a corny title, but Grant had assured him that it was a remake of an artsy European film that had fit the title a lot better than the grim drama that had unfolded before them – had been about a man that had lost his best friend to an accident and that kept dreaming that his friend was alive.  It had reminded Gabriel of himself in the days just after Lander’s death, where he kept waking up thinking that Lander would be there, outside, waiting for him… or when he’d laid his hand on the windowsill ready to crawl out only to remember that there was nobody waiting for him anymore at the spot where he and Lander used to sprawl out under the stars, dressed or naked, drunk or sober, to talk and fantasize and  _dream with open eyes_ … “Ah, merde,  _merde_ , pourquoi t'me manques maintenant, Lander, mon ami?”, he asked, sighing when he imagined his dead friend’s answer as he would’ve spoken it.

 _'Cause ya got it good, finally, and you think it’s unfair that I ain’t there, Bree._ It was a bittersweet thought, Gabriel mused: Lander was a good judge of character and he’d had the uncanny ability to know what was irking Gabriel before he knew it himself – that was an ability that would’ve come in handy in the days after his death.  Gabriel had turned his grief inward and had started a drinking binge that only ended when Grant smashed one of his bottles in front of him and called him names that had ended them both up in the medbay – Grant for some emergency bone repairs and Gabriel for a twenty-four hour detox course that he’d only recently forgiven the medic for.  Mentally, he added the bit that Lander always had asked when he felt that urge to poke at Gabriel’s inner demons again:  _Hey, pally, why do ya look like you just shat your best pair of undies, huh?_

“You should’ve still been here, mon ami.  You deserved to be happy and free of the itch just as much as me.  …Hell, Sam would’ve loved you-”

_Not like she loves you, Gabe.  Besides, if I still were here, you wouldn’t have met that Sam of yours.  Nah, all in all-_

“Don’t ya fuckin’ say it, Lander…”, he ground out, feeling the familiar itching in his palms, as if he’d pressed them hard into sandpaper, and he blanched.  He’d just told his mental image of Lander that the man had deserved to be free of the itch just as he was, but the almost painful burn in his palms was a sure sign that he was once again feeling that all-too-familiar urge to light something up again.  “…Oh non…”, he stammered, looking at his hands, knowing full well that no amount of pleading could hold them back, practiced as they were at gathering scraps of wood.  The flame bloomed up from them like the first blossoms on trees in spring, and the warmth that washed over him was instant and soothing, as it had always been.

 _Hey, Gabriel, ya see, it’s not as bad as you think it is._ Lander’s mental image said it soothingly, but Gabriel shook his head.  Despite the calmth in the core of his being, he felt physically sick with himself for the flames that now crackled a little.  As a result, he shook his head vehemently.

“C'est pire, beaucoup plus pire…  Fuck, Lander, I was  _free!_   I hadn’t felt the fuckin’ itch in  _weeks,_ in  _months_ even, and now, suddenly… I don’t even know  _why the fuck I did it._ J'ai déçu Sammy… she’s gonna be pissed off with me, an’ she’s right to be.  I was doin’ so great… why the hell… w-why, Lander, huh?  Tell me, why the hell am I even out here?”

 _'Cause you’re just a man, Bree.  You’re just a man, you’re fallible.  You can fuck shit up.  An’ sure, maybe you did fuck shit up now, but bein’ a man also means you can_ make shit right  _again… it’s okay, Bree…_ , Lander’s mental image said softly as Gabriel felt tears sting in his eyes – he felt so bad about himself, felt so much like a failure, that he found himself crying freely, the tears staining the darker brown that the rock face had been seared in that big fire, a little under six years prior, that had cost him so much.  He wept for himself and his weakness, but he also wept for Lander and the friend that he missed – not the screwing around and not the drinking together, but the deep conversations and the sense of understanding he’d had with his fellow pyro – and he wept for the five years of bitterness and grief that had followed. He wept for the way he’d held a grudge against Rudolf when all the man wanted was to help; he wept for Grant and all the times he’d hurt the man when all the engineer had been to him was a friend but he’d been too blind or too drunk to notice that; he wept for Sam and her brother and the way Lander’s ghostly memory had said that he never would’ve met her, the light of his life, if he hadn’t died… and all the while, Lander kept comforting him.  His voice started sounding suspiciously much like Sam’s after a while – at first, he thought it was just in his head… but then soft, small hands moved over his shoulders and he looked up to find Sam sit next to him, holding him close.

“…H-hey, mon ange, how… I didn’t…”

“Shhh, Gabriel, I… I know you miss him sometimes. It’s okay… hey, it’s more than okay for you to miss the man that you got so deeply involved with.  A-and it’s okay for you to-”

“Non, dis pas… it ain’t okay.  None of it is okay.  Lander not bein’ here is fucked up, even if I never would’ve met ya if he hadn’t died then.  Me s-startin’ another goddamn fire is… c'est foiré.  J'suis faible-”, he started, but then Samantha echoed the words that his mental image of Lander had spoken so perfectly that Gabriel’s breath got stuck in his throat.

“No, you’re just a man, mon amour.  You’re just a man… you’re fallible.  You can make mistakes – and okay, maybe starting another fire isn’t good, but you being a man also means you can do good again. Really, it’s okay, Gabriel-”  He cut her off with a kiss that was at once light and lamenting, a kiss that went together perfectly with the plaintive whimper he uttered the next second..  Sam, however, wasn’t stopped that easily: she detached from him, the minutest distance separating their lips, and spoke in a whisper that nevertheless thundered in his ears like the voice of God himself.  “You’re far from perfect, but everyone is, Gabriel, mon amour, and that’s how it  _should_ be.  You are like the Good Lord made you to be, and I am like the Good Lord made  _me_ to be, and he’s put us together for a reason.   _Nothing_ changes that.  Not these scraps of wood that you held to a lighter, not Lander up there havin’ a teaparty with your mum and Michael and a million dead pets.”  She kissed him again, much lighter and sweeter this time, and he sighed once they parted again.

“Lander isn’t an angel.  Hell, he was just as much of a sinner as I was.  Even more 'cause he never  _did_ let me smoke his cigarettes, whatever the hell was in 'em…”  He even managed a faint grin as he looked at the fire again, still feeling nauseous but not as much as before.  “Guess he was not as vile as everyone thought he was, he managed to save  _me_ from one last temptation…”

“Lander  _is_ an angel.  Even sinners go to heaven, Gabriel.  His body was maybe weak and human, but his mind… I’m sure his mind was pure, and good.  That’s all that matters.”  She looked at the fire as well, extending her hands out to it to leech warmth from it, prompting Gabriel to inch a little closer to his girlfriend as she spoke again. “…I think Lander and Michael are good friends up there.  They… have something in common, after all…”, she said delicately – it was at that moment that Gabriel consciously remembered that Sam’s brother had been ripped from her by fire, just as Lander had been taken from him.  He looked his girlfriend over again, pondering in silence again. She was relatively scar-free due to extensive surgery and a treatment of miracle medicine of a month, but she still had a few remnants of having run into a fire.  It made him wonder whether he would’ve done the same for Lander. Had he loved the man enough to want to risk his life for him?  Had Lander meant as much to him as Michael had to Sam?

“…J'sais pas…”, he muttered, causing Sam to look at him again with conspicuously wet eyes.

“What, love?”

“I… was thinkin’ about Lander and Michael, an’ I… wondered whether Lander really meant that much to me, whether I would’ve done what you did for your brother, mon ange… and I… I don’t know. J'sais pas.”  He sighed and hid his face in his hands, expecting Sam to berate him for comparing what he’d felt for Lander with her sisterly love for Michael, but instead she gently pried his hands away from his face and looked him right in the eye.  She’d straddled his knees in order to do so: behind her, the fire burnt brightly, making it look like she was a  _real_ angel of fire, with burning wings folded behind her.

“Gabriel, you’ve told me, each time you mentioned that fire, that Grant and Dell both had to hold you back.  That it took both of them to keep you away from that shed. And neither Grant nor Dell is weak or incapable of stopping you by himself out there on the battlefield. Believe me, you would’ve done it for him in a heartbeat.  You loved him.  And he loved you.  Not like you and I love each other, maybe, but there was more there than casual sleeping around.  There was  _so much more_ there.  And I’m sure Lander can hear me when I thank him for that.”  Gabriel blinked, surprised by that admission of his girlfriend, who seemed to manage a sage smile at his confusion while she elaborated: “You were in need of a friend after all you’d been through.  Someone who understood what it is to have… to feel a fire burning in the very heart of you, a fire that could consume you, a fire that could burn you to cinders… a fire you need to push back every second with every ounce of strength you’ve got-”  Gabriel kissed the remainder of her words off her lips eagerly, pulling her against himself gently and closing his eyes to the fire.  When they parted again, he looked only at his girlfriend, his urge to see fire and at the same time lament himself having completely gone from his mind.

“Alors, let’s go inside, I’m fuckin’ freezing out here.”, he suggested, letting go of Sam so she could get back onto her feet, at which point she offered him a hand at getting up off the rocky soil as well.

“…And the fire?”, Sam asked – he could tell she meant more than just the physical fire by her tone and the look on her face, but it didn’t matter at all.  He even smiled as he answered.

“…Let it burn out here.  N'importe pas du tout.  Who needs a fire when they got an angel comme toi, mon âme?”  As Sam smiled and reached for his hand, he spoke one last time to his deceased friend that, admittedly, he also imagined as sitting in heaven.

'Lander, mon ami, you’d better keep an eye on  _her_ , too…’

_You an’ her, both, Bree.  You and that lady of yours.  I swear._

 

“Ouch!”  Sam rubbed the painful spot on her shoulder where the wrench had hit while Dell gave her a plaintive look.

“Sorry fer tha’ there bruise, li'l lady, but ah gotta check if'n Pierre ain’t comin’ back fer another attempt at sappin’ mah sentry. …Got t'admit, though, yer reflexes were spot on – an’ yeh’re still real agile with tha’ there Homewrecker-”

“My 'Sap-B-Gon’.”, she amended, blushing when Dell raised an eyebrow and adding in a muted voice: “Gabriel suggested that this thing needed a silly name to add insult to injury whenever I kill someone with it and 'Sap-B-Gon’ just so happens to remind me of a game I used to play frequently when I was younger…”

“Awh, ’s awright, Sam, dahlin’, yeh don’t got t'apologise fer nuthin’ here – yeh’re still real agile with yer  _Sap-B-Gon_ even when there’s a butterfly knife stickin’ from yer shoulder.”  He patted the top of his dispenser at that mention, grinning at her.  “Bet yeh were real glad the ol’ dispenser healed yeh right 'n’ quick fer burnin’ Billy when  _he_ came runnin’ in a second or three after.  He had the darn funniest expression on 'is face when yeh jus’ whacked 'im upside the head with tha’ there Sap-B-Gon.”

“That’s because I  _broke half his face_ so he couldn’t really look any other way.  Besides,  _you_ maybe find his eye popping out of its socket 'funny’, but I’m going to have  _recurring nightmares_ about that…”  She sighed and pulled her mask in front of her face again, dousing Dell, his machinery and the surroundings in another dose of burning petrol – she hadn’t expected to ignite anything, but Pierre clearly had been standing by for another attempt, and his cloaked form burst into flames with a loud 'whoosh’ that was almost loud enough to drown out his curse.

“ _Putain!!_ ”  He tried in vain to swat out the flames, but Sam’s sledgehammer descended upon the flame-shrouded invisible form and he only managed to give another loud and startled yelp before falling to the floor dead, his cloak wearing off finally.

“Tha’ there spah ain’t gon’ stop tryin’ tuh git at me an’ mah machines…”, Dell said with a sigh, looking around as if the spy hadn’t just died – Sam, having encountered the peculiarities of his 'Dead Ringer’ antique pocketwatch, also did another nervous sweep of the surroundings, but when she found nothing, she relaxed again, pulling the mask away from her face once more.

“I’d better stay around here, to make sure that Pierre doesn’t come back to haunt you-”, she started, but Dell shook his head.

“Naw, ah’ll be okay-”  They were both interrupted by the loud sound of the horn and the voice of the Administrator echoing through the speakers, making it sound somewhat metallic.

 _“BLU team has won!”_   Both Sam and Dell looked first at the speakers and then at each other, surprise prevalent on their expressions.  The Administrator didn’t regularly announce their wins – the only time when she did so was when they’d been in a live match.  But usually, they were warned in advance of such an event, so that they’d fight extra fiercely.

“…Did you-?”, Sam started, wondering whether the rest of the team had indeed been notified, but Dell shook his head.

“Normally that call comes through t'me, an’ ah’m just ’s surprised as yew are, li'l lady… anyway, let’s head back t'respawn. Ain’t gonna do us a lick'a good worryin’ about it too much.”, the engineer said as he picked up his machinery again, which turned to blueprints in his hands.  The two of them walked briskly back to the respawn room, where the rest of the team slowly trickled in both via respawn or the sliding door, until Theo finally showed up and the team looked at each other.

“…Feels a little weird, aye?”, Tavish asked, completely sober for once – that was an added testament to the nervosity that hung in the air if ever there was one, and Archie perfectly summed it up for the eight men and Sam.

“So what now, we  _sit 'round_ here?  If this is tha company’s idea of havin’ a freakin’  _day off_ , I don’t really appreciate tha gesture here!”  Dell meant to speak up to the others as they voiced their agreement with the scout but then, the telephone that hung off the wall of the respawn room rang, and a deathly quiet fell as Dell walked over to it and picked it up.

“Dell.  …Mmhmm. Yeah, sure thing, ma'am.  A whut now?  A-ah see… sure… awright, yew wan’ me tuh speak tuh her or d'yew wanna speak t'her yerself?  …Awrighty, ma'am, ah’ll be sure tuh tell 'er that.  Sure thing.  Yew have a nice day.”  The engineer looked at the group, and especially at Sam, and everyone suddenly turned to her, making the pyro bite her lip in sudden anxiety.  What had the Administrator said about her?  Why did Dell look both like Christmas had come early and like a papa bear worrying about its cub?  “…Th'Administrator.”, he explained a little superfluously, “She said she wants tuh record 'nother promotional video of a weapon.”

“Which one?”, Jane asked, looking Sam’s equipment over, the rest of his remark –  _'nothing of Sam’s equipment hasn’t been featured before’ –_  hanging in the air.  However, Dell’s next words were simple.

“The Homewrecker.  An’ she wants it t'be featured in an intel run.  Says its, uh,  _offensive_ capacities weren’t really showcased 'nough in the last promotional video.  ’s jus’ gonna be Sam runnin’ fer the intel – maybe t'gether with one'a us, like Arch, but the main focus is gon’ haveta be on Sammy.  Gas mask  _on_ all the while, awright?”, he addressed Sam, who nodded softly.  She’d been informed of the rules of any special assignment way back in the beginning of her job, and the 'gas mask on at all times’ requirement had been mentioned a fair number of times, enough to imprint it soundly in her mind.

“Gas mask on, got it… so what’s the game plan?”, she asked, and Dell smiled, outlaying the playing field for her.

“Yew are gon’ start next tuh me.  The horn’s gon’ sound an’ exactly a minute later, Pierre’s gon’ show up tuh backstab me.  Yeh’re gon’ torch him an’ then kill him with tha’ there Sap-B-Gon 'a yers.  Then yew an’ Arch are gon’ move up tuh grab the enemy intel.  Melee kills only.  Yew are gon’ return – Arch, son, ’m real sorry but yeh’re gon’ git shot-”

“Aw  _jeez_ … why’s it always  _me_ that gets shot in these promo vids?!”, the scout complained, though he didn’t carry a grudge for long: a grin graced his features as he asked Dell the next question. “So, where  do we gotta run?”

“Yew stick to the left side, an’ they’s gonna follow Sam as she goes to the right side.  She’s gonna fight Billy, Gabriel-”  Now Sam was the one to groan.  She didn’t often get up close and personal with Gabriel, especially since Dell had said 'melee kills only’ which meant that she couldn’t use her shotgun as she usually did when dispatching of him.  However, her friend seemed to understand her fear since he patted her on the shoulder and spoke soothingly: “…Gabriel  _ain’t_ gon’ use his Axtinguisher.  Billy’s gon’ use his bat, sure, an’ Grant’s still gon’ use his wrench when yeh 'surprise’ 'im as he’s buildin’ up 'is dispenser, but th'others are gon’ use their reg'lar weapons.  Yew ain’t gon’ find Radovan an’ Rudolf-”

“Aw jeez…”, Archie groaned again, which got a soft impatient 'tsk’ from Dell’s lips right before his somewhat deprecating next words.

“Archie, son, d'yew mind lettin’ me finish? Y'ain’t gonna find Radovan an’ Rudolf until the end – Arch’, yew drink a can'a Bonk! an’ distract Rado’ while Sam takes out Rudolf in close combat.  Then Sam picks up th'intel an’ runs back t'me, kills Pierre  _again_  right after he backstabs me, an’ then saves mah machines with 'er li'l Sap-B-Gon-”

“That wreckin’ hammer is a lot of things, truckie, but it’s not 'little’.”, Theo reacted, snorting as Dell made a face at him but wincing when Jane whacked him upside the head none too gently with the flat of his hand, upsetting the Australian’s hat. However, before an argument could develop, Sam shouldered her flamethrower again and spoke up loudly.

“Guys, guys, let’s just get cleaned up for the fight – because rigged or not, a fight’s still a fight.”  She quietly checked her equipment, leaving the rest of the men to do the same, Archie and Dell whispering words of thanks to her as they sat down on either side and the scout quietly muttering under his breath to her as she finished polishing the head of her sledgehammer.

“..'Ey, yo, Sammy, when ya fight Grant… he likes ta swing his wrench, like, horizontally, so duck to tha left an’ he ain’t gonna hit nothin’ but air.  If he draws his wrench back, duck low, that means he’s gonna go for a vertical swing anyway.  Or, ya know, kick 'im in the nuts.  ’s Maybe easier than duckin’.  Grant is freakin’  _tiny_  so ya gonna have ta duck  _supah_ low-”

“Arch’, son, don’t yeh go encouragin’ Suhmantha t'fight dirty, y'hear?”, Dell said, his voice wavering between amused and berating, and Sam shook her head, patting both of her colleagues and friends on the shoulder.

“I’ll fight like any proper pyro would fight.  That means a clean, stand-up fight.  But that might end Grant up with a smashed-in face or a firmly cracked spine.  I don’t have to fight dirty to end my Sap-B-Gon up into Grant’s groin, either, it’s so easy to swing it upwards-”

“Well, ah’m bettin’ Grant’s gon’ be purdy grateful respawn ain’t painful, then…”, the engineer admitted, wincing emphatically as Sam very deliberately put the sledgehammer into its loop on her belt and then took up her flamethrower again.  “…C'mon, S'mantha, yeh’re with me.  Arch, yew an’ Arsaine run with Sam.”

“Where do I get, 'ow do dey say, peecked off?”, the spy asked businesslike, dusting off his suit and readjusting his watch on his wrist, to which Dell answered with a grin.

“Yew get tuh destroy Grant’s sentry an’ then git a wrench to the face.  Or wherever Grant usually likes t'hit yew.”

“'E likes to 'it me on zee 'ead with eet.  Bien, Samantha, ma chère, you weel avenge me, den, non?”

“With all due fire.  Or, well, with all due blunt force trauma, I guess,my flamethrower is going to break down when Pierre attacks me, isn’t it, Dell?”, Sam asked, to which the engineer nodded and then built out his sentry to level two, at which point he tended to his dispenser.  As the horn sounded, he sighed and looked at Sam.  She pulled on her gasmask instantly and muttered to her friend.

“Mmm shhrrrrmm thhhth hhhmm hhhhphh thmmm thmmm…”

“Awh, thank yeh kindly, pardner.”, he said – she grinned behind the expressionless filter and lenses of her mask, realizing that Dell couldn’t mention her name or show just how much her words meant to him, but that he’d nevertheless found a way to express that sentiment flawlessly.

“Hhh, Thmmm, hhhrrr shmmm shmmmrrrth…”, she said, and Dell chuckled while constructing his dispenser to level three, turning to her to say something but only managing a gasp as Pierre’s butterfly knife pierced his back with ease.  “Thmmmnnn!”, Sam cursed as the spy flicked his knife clean again, spinning around and aiming her flamethrower at the man, only to find the Frenchman cut the fuel line, rendering her flamethrower useless.  “Thmnnn!”, she cursed again, throwing away her Backburner and taking her Sap-B-Gon from her belt in the same motion, spinning around to deflect a jab from Pierre with her elbow and then bringing her sledgehammer down against his jaw.  He cried out in pain and flinched back, allowing her to swing the hammer down: it connected to his skull with a faint crunching sound that was echoed when he hit the soil again, motionless. “Mmmthrrrrr phmmmmkhhrrrr…”, Sam muttered, looking towards the sounds of battle that issued from the hallway and musing that it felt nothing like a rigged fight.  Already, Archie came running up to her.

“'Ey, yo, while Engie’s rebuildin’ his stuff closah to our intel, ya wanna go an’ help me get the enemy papers?”

“Khmmmnnnn.”, she said, shouldering her Homewrecker and causing Archie to take out his bat and dash out in front of her.  As they arrived at the fork, she motioned for him to take a left while she took a right, grinning behind her mask.  She’d heard the distinct footsteps of Arsène, meaning their teammate had already set off to demolish Grant’s sentry.  As she ducked inside, she found Arsène tangoing with the Georgian engineer and seemingly slipping up just as she came within reach of the RED Engineer.  Blood spurted from the back of his head as Grant’s Southern Hospitality dug into the weak flesh there.

“That’s what yeh git, yeh  _snake_ …”, Grant said, oblivious – whether feigned or unintentional – to Sam standing behind him and swinging her hammer back before swiping it horizontally with as much force as she could muster.  The resulting blow broke Grant’s neck, jaw and probably part of his skull as well: the redheaded engineer’s hardhat flew off his head and clattered against his dispenser, but he still lived because of his machinery.  Another hit, this one going upward, smashed Grant’s head backwards and caused him to finally succumb to his wounds with a meager whimper, at which point Sam turned around to tend to the man’s dispenser.  The first blow smashed apart the heartrate monitor at the top, the second one caused the medigas cylinder to hiss ominously, and the third blow seemingly set off the selfdestruct mechanism inside as the dispenser blew apart with a muted blast.  Then, however, she heard running footsteps that weren’t Archie’s – Archie was still waiting for her to appear near Radovan and Rudolf, she knew – and she sharply turned around to find Gabriel approaching, his own Backburner still fully functional.

“Hhhh, hhrrrr khnnnnmm rrrrkhrrrrth-”, he started, clearly intending to say that she’d regret killing his team’s engineer, but she swung her Sap-B-Gon in a circular arc, against his knee, and it caused him to topple over instantly.  “M-mmmrrrth!”, he exclaimed, squeezing the handle of his flamethrower, to which Sam reacted by sidestepping, ending up next to him, and swinging her Homewrecker hammer right into Gabriel’s gasmask-covered face.  It smashed one of the lenses, revealing a black and blue eye behind it that was widened in surprise – and that fact, the sheer shock on the face of her boyfriend, made her grin and swipe the hammer upward, knocking Gabriel’s head back hard enough to snap his neck and kill him instantly, at which point she ran forward, finding Archie dancing in front of Radovan, teasingly calling out to the Russian to 'stop aimin’ for my freakin’ tiny head’.  Both RED men were standing with their backs turned at her, and she caught the telltale glimmer of Rudolf’s medigun indicating he was nearly ready to übercharge the heavy – chuckling soundlessly, Sam walked up to Rudolf, swinging her hammer high over her head and then bringing it down in a graceful but deadly arc, right onto the medic’s head that seemingly  _exploded_ in blood and viscera.  Radovan turned around to her slowly, the spinning minigun making sure that he couldn’t move any more quickly, but turning his attention away from Archie proved fatal, as the scout’s Bonk! dose had just worn off, meaning he could switch back to his scattergun, which he then promptly placed against the back of the Heavy’s head and pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession.  The recoil from the blasts made his arm ache, Sam could tell, but Radovan’s head was torn apart by the buckshot – Archie had requested special shells for demonstration fights, which he now used, and she had to say that her work was beyond what she’d expected.  However, before Archie could cheer as he usually did when besting an enemy that had forced him into defending, Sam strapped the intelligence briefcase onto her back, using the straps that would normally hold her flamethrower in place, and motioned for Archie to follow.

“Khmmmnnnn-”

“Yeah, yeah, Mumbles…”, Archie said – even  _he_ didn’t slip up, not using her name, causing her to grin ruefully as she realized the reason for his reluctant tone wasn’t the fact that she’d taken away his victory, but the fact that he knew he’d get picked off by Chris, who was standing on his lookout point again.  Sure enough, as they ran back, a shot rang out over the din of battle and Archie went down with a strangled cry.  Before the sniper could take aim at her – or before he could  _pretend_ to take aim at her, at least – she ducked into another hallway which would lead her back to BLU’s own intelligence and to Dell, where she’d kill Pierre a second time – but before there, she first ran into Graeme, who launched a few grenades at her with surprising precision despite his semi-drunken state and the fact that it was a demonstration fight.  It didn’t aid him: Sam easily weaved between his grenades as they bounced and soon stood face to face with the Scotsman, whose wild red mane was quickly matted down with blood and what was most likely brain matter leaking from the hole she’d managed to hit into the back of his thick skull. Next up was Billy: the scout died faster than the others, in exactly the same way as he’d died in the previous, more earnest fight – a hit to the head that fractured half his face, and which did  _not_ dislodge his eye from its socket this time, fortunately.  She mused that all but Chris and John had fallen prey to her now, but then she heard footsteps behind her and ducked into a small dead-end hallway that hid her from view as the two men she’d just been thinking about passed her.  They were inattentive and talking about 'Smokey’, meaning her, having the intel again… She quickly ducked back onto the main pathway behind them, swinging her hammer horizontally and hitting both men right in the back: Chris went down with a pained cry, and John got hit full in the side by the sniper’s body as well as the hammer, causing him to get pushed into the rockface but not, as Chris was, injured badly.  However, his rocketlauncher was completely useless now, and Sam used his second of confusion to her advantage to swing her Sap-B-Gon up at the soldier, aiming for his stomach but ending it up, ironically,  in his groin – just as she’d jokingly talked about doing to Grant before. John gave a startled, somewhat high-pitched whimper, and moved his hands to the injured area, his expression such that Sam considered it mercy to send him off to respawn and allow his wounded body to be restored so that his privates wouldn’t hurt any longer.

“Mmm mnnnn…”, she sighed, walking further towards the intelligence dropoff spot: then, however, she heard the telltale sounds of a fight going on there, and she broke into a run with a muffled curse. Pierre clearly hadn’t waited for her to appear before attacking Dell, but the engineer seemed to not go down without a proper fight, either, making her run all the faster.  She arrived at the open spot where their own intelligence lay just as Dell finally lost the fight and got stabbed in the gut first and then in the back as he fell to his knees.  Pierre casually laid a sapper on top of the dispenser, his back turned to Sam, and then walked over to the BLU briefcase – Sam threw caution to the wind and ran over to him, her Homewrecker connecting to the sapper on the dispenser first and then the one on the sentry, just as Pierre had strapped the intelligence briefcase onto his back.  He turned around only to stare directly into the twin barrels of the automated gun, which rattled off a brief but satisfying round of bullets, piercing Pierre and tearing his body apart.  Sam grinned and loosened the intelligence briefcase from her own back, laying it down on the capture zone just in time for Dell to reach his machines again from respawn, and the horn sounded a few seconds later.

“…Well, S'mantha, if'n they ain’t got their money’s worth'a material with yew fightin’ like tha’, well, then ah don’t know if'n they’s ever gonna.”, the engineer admitted as Sam took off the mask, breathing a little harder than usual due to all the running and swinging her hammer.

“Well, I certainly got a week’s worth of exercise from it – Gabriel might have to massage my arms back to life tonight… Ouch…” She gave Dell a soft look. “You did well fighting Pierre before, too – did he get impatient?”

“Ah?  Naw, we were play-fightin’ tuh waste away the time until yeh came back, only turned it serious when we heard yeh comin’ runnin’, li'l lady – guess we did a real good job if'n we had yeh fooled, huh?”, he admitted, and she rolled her eyes before nodding.

“You and Pierre had me going alright – but I suppose that made for better television, too, so you’re off the hook. …Uh, so what now?”

“Well, uh, last time, when Dante were selected tuh do a showcase 'f th'Axtinguisher, we got th'rest'a that day off…”, Dell said, smiling and scratching his head.  “If'n we don’t, it ain’t bad neither-”

“Truckie, telephone call for you!!”, Jane’s voice boomed out from behind them – the two turned around to see the soldier holding open the door to the respawn room, looking at Sam with a glare that spelled 'jealousy’ a lot better than anything else ever would, causing Sam to snort quickly before running over to the soldier’s side along with Dell.  “Sam, you did us proud out there, I’m sure.”, he said softly as Sam passed, causing her to smile.

“I only fought as I would’ve if this  _wasn’t_ a rigged fight, and the REDs didn’t make it feel at all like it was a rigged fight, for that matter.  …And, uh, sorry if I’m taking up too much of Dell’s time-”

“Oh, no, Sam, you… you’re not…”, Jane admitted, looking decidedly away from Sam – it took her a moment to realize that he looked away to stop her from noticing he was blushing, which got her to grin and pat him on the shoulder just as she’d pat Dell on the shoulder.

“You and him fit well together, Jane.  Don’t ever change.”  She then walked in just as Dell announced that they’d all earned a day’s leave.


	45. The hurt doesn't show (but the pain still grows)

“Ah,  _merde_ …” Of all the moments in all the day to ring, his cellphone chose the moment when he’d just started making dinner – some pasta with cream cheese sauce and herbs.  “…Sam, mon ange?  Could ya-”, Gabriel started to shout, only to remember that his girlfriend had left to go and talk to Dell about her latest batch of shotgun shells.  Groaning, he quickly dried off his hands on the dishtowel and walked briskly over to the table, picking up the cellphone and pushing the blinking icon on the screen to accept the call.  “Yes?”  His voice was still a bit bristly, but nowhere near annoyed enough for the man on the other side of the telephone to react with what sounded like half a curse.

“ _Oh verd-  I mean, this is_ not  _the cellphone of Samantha Tennant, I presume?”_  That got Gabriel to blink.

“Uh, no, but Samantha Tennant is my girlfriend, so you’ve gotten the right directions.”  A relieved sigh preceded the other man’s answer.

“ _Thank the lord.  I was beginning to think there was a misunderstanding. I… had to look up the right country code for America already.  I’ve tried twice before, l-last night, but my shift took up most of my time until now-”_

“Wait… ‘shift’?”, Gabriel asked, blinking.  “You… you’d better explain.  I don’t think I understand.”

“ _I should really only discuss this with miss Tennant-”_ , the man started, but Gabriel gritted his teeth and shook his head, elaborating the gesture verbally to transmit it through the telephone.

“Look, mister, until now you haven’t introduced yourself yet, and you haven’t told me  _shit_ about why you’re asking for my girlfriend and how you got my number.  If you wanna get her on this phone, or get her direct number, you’re going through me and you’re telling  _me_ , okay?”

“ _…I… well, I suppose most of the information isn’t privileged anyway… My name is doctor Daniël Verboven, from Universitair Ziekenhuis Antwerpen – that’s the Antwerp university hospital-”_

“Antwerp university hospital?  What… Sam’s never even  _been_ to Antwerp…”, Gabriel said, but then it clicked in his mind before the man got the chance to speak up again and the RED pyro groaned. “'Course, Sam’s parents… damn it, I forgot.  I… so it’s about them?”

“ _Y-yes, indeed.  Mister and misses Donovan had an accident late last night – nothing major, but their car did flip over and is, uh, perte totale. They were brought in to ’t spoed – uh, our emergencies department, I mean – to be examined.  When we asked if they had any family that they wanted informed, mister Donovan gave me this number on a piece of paper.  It only held miss Tennant’s name and the number… and, uh, now that you mention it, it did hold something about you, too… Anyway, I called to inform miss Tennant of her parents’ accident and… well…  Mister Donovan’s leg is broken and he has some mild neck pain that’ll most likely go away in the next few weeks.  B-but it’s misses Donovan I wished to speak to miss Tennant about… her situation… I can’t tell you, since it’s privileged information, but-”_

“No need… uh, look, mi- I mean, doctor Verboven…”, Gabriel said, trying to smoothly pronounce the name in English and, failing that, repeating it in French.  “Docteur Verboven, can ya hold?  I’ll go to Sam, she’s… gone to one of our colleagues…”  As he spoke, he already walked over to the door to the BLU side of the compound, briskly opening it and walking through with the phone still pressed to his ear.  Knocking on Dell’s door, he got no response, but Tavish walked out of the toilets and, seeing Gabriel, nudged his head at the door to the dining room.

“In there, Dante.”

“Merci, mon ami.”, Gabriel said hastily, hurrying over to the room and opening the door to find Sam mid-discussion with Archie and Dell, both of whom were sitting at the table with a sheaf of paper in between them.

“-and if you want help for chemistry-  Gabriel, mon amour, what-?”, she started, but Gabriel quickly and impatiently interrupted her, motioning with his free hand for the cellphone he still held against his shoulder.

“Sammy, I got a doctor Verboven on the phone for ya – he’s from Antwerp, from the university hospital there, he said there was a minor car accident and-”

“Oh my god!”, Sam said, instantly taking the cellphone from his hands and pressing a few buttons on it nimbly before speaking.  “This is Samantha Tennant.  Are my parents okay?  …I put you on speakerphone, doctor, but feel free to talk.  I have no secrets from my friends.”

“ _I-if you’re sure… well, your parents did not suffer much damage from the accident.  Your father broke his leg because the car flipped over and his leg got stuck under the dashboard, but considering the state of the car that’s minor damage.  He’s also got minor whiplash damage to his neck, that should clear up within a few weeks.  And your mother had minor bruises but complained of stomach pains so we looked into it further.  The preliminary scans we took… I’m sorry to say, but the preliminary scans showed-”_

“Oh my god, this… this is bad, isn’t it?  D-did she… will she  _live_?”, Sam asked, sagging onto the chair that Dell instinctively offered her and that Gabriel instantly crouched down beside, holding his girlfriend’s hand.  The doctor’s voice was calm and soothing as he replied.

“ _It is perhaps bad, yes, but it’s not due to the accident… it’s just, the scans revealed a mass in her upper abdomen, between the stomach and the pancreas.  Considering your mother’s age, physical fitness and diet, it could be a few things, but she’s scheduled for a biopsy later today.  It might –_ might _, mind you – be cancer-”_  Gabriel could hardly blame Sam for sobbing softly and wiping a few tears from the corners of her eyes.  Hearing something like that wasn’t just devastating, it was world-stopping, no matter how much grief Sam’s mother had caused her.  The doctor had heard her sob too, because he continued:  _“But let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet.  First, we do this biopsy, and then we’ll go from those results.  It could be benign, it could even be_ nothing _, but-”_

“But you have to make sure, of course.”, Sam said, exhaling softly. Gabriel could see the relief on her features, though part of the tension didn’t leave, evidenced by her next question.  “D-doctor, did they… did they  _ask_ about me?”

“ _Your father was adamant that we call you.  Your mother… got a little excited at the notion.  But I imagine you knew that already, miss Tennant, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked, right?  …Well, it’s morning now – do you want me to call in and ask if they would like to speak to you?”_

“Oh, I… if you wouldn’t wake them up…”, Sam said, nodding vigorously and yet clenching and unclenching her fists.  Gabriel quickly looped his arm around her shoulders, rubbing both of her arms soothingly to at least alleviate some of her tension.  The doctor, meanwhile, chuckled.

“ _It’s 8AM now – we let our patients keep to their own schedule but the morning medication is distributed at 7:30.  …I’ll call the nurse and ask her to patch the call through.”_ , the doctor suggested: a soothing piece of classical music drifted through the speakers for a full thirty seconds before it abruptly ended and a scratchy, weathered voice sounded.

_"Wi-william Te- I mean, William Donovan speaking-”_

“Dad, i-it’s Samantha.”  Instantly, Gabriel saw, his girlfriend’s eyes filled with tears – of joy, of gratitude, but also of apprehension. Damien had assured her a dozen of times that their  _mother_ was the angry one and that their father didn’t participate in it all, that he hadn’t participated in it since the beginning, but she was still afraid that both her parents blamed her for what had happened to her youngest brother.  Despite himself, Gabriel could feel tension creep into  _him_ as well, as he stood ready to defend Sam fiercely even from her own mother and father.  Then…

“ _Oh my god, Sammy!  Oh, Samantha, darling sweetheart, it… you can’t believe how good it is to hear your voice!  Ah, I’ve missed you! D-dear Lord, I-”_

“D-dad, it’s okay, I missed you too, and… and…”  Sam sobbed, loudly so now, causing Archie to fidget in his chair and Dell to pat her on the head, smiling at the telephone; Gabriel, meanwhile, squeezed Sam’s hand again.  But just when Sam intended to speak up again, a second voice issued through the telephone, this one much more harsh and clipped.

“ _Samantha? Our Samantha?!  Give me that telephone, Will, or so help me- Samantha Tennant, did you call to gloat, to laugh at our misery?!! Do you honestly have no shame?!”_

“Mum, n-no!”, Sam said – in a heartbeat, she tensed completely, her hand squeezing Gabriel’s hard enough to make him wince at the abuse his burn scars had to withstand, and she leaned a little lower over the telephone to hide her face from the rest, tears dripping down on either side of it.  “I d-didn’t call to gloat, I would never-”

“ _Just as you would never hurt your sweet innocent brother?  You liar, you_ know  _what you did to him!”_

“Mother,  _please_ , I am calling- I am trying to put the past aside-”, Sam tried desperately, shaking by now.

“Mon ange… c'mon, she’s just… out of it…”, Gabriel whispered into her ear soothingly – or at least, that was the idea, only it didn’t work quite as well as he’d hoped for.  Sam still remained tense, and her mother’s next words were deliberately chosen to hurt, Gabriel knew.

“ _D'you really have no shame, or no remorse?!!  You killed him!  You can say 'I didn’t light the petrol’ or 'I didn’t tell him to do what he did’ all you want, but_ you  _put silly ideas in his head!  You made him fail!”_ Gabriel couldn’t stop Sam even if he wanted to: she brought her hands down onto the table, which creaked ominously, and then picked up his cellphone to speak angrily into it.

“Mother,  _you_ are the one that ought to feel ashamed or remorseful!   _You_ hit him,  _you_ put him down every chance you got,  _you_ told him he was a failure!  All Michael ever wanted was to be loved by his mother, to be appreciated, to be cherished – and all you gave him was a beating and a firm warning to do better next time or else!  You are the  _worst_ , the  _most pitiful_ , the  _most wretched excuse of a parent_ and I’m  _done_ making excuses to you!  Consider what you did to Michael!  Consider what you did to  _me_ , you awful would-be mother!  I genuinely felt sorry for hearing you might have cancer but now I do not give a damn about that-”

“S-sam, li'l lady-”, Dell started, intending to speak up and calm her down, but she turned away from the men and towards the wall to finish venting her anger at the person that deserved it.

“-you  _deserve_ to feel at least a  _touch_ of the horror that Michael felt  _every single day_ because of you!  Everything I did, everything dad and Damien did, couldn’t outweigh the filth that you spewed to him!  You called him a  _disappointment_ , for Christ’s sake, woman!  I am… I am  _appalled_ to have to call you my mother…  Now, put dad back on the telephone, or so help me, I’m finding a way to pull you through this goddamn smartphone and  _strangle_ you, you vile, evil, loathsome  _snake_!” Silence fell, only punctuated by Sam’s heavy breaths as she paced. Archie didn’t dare speak to her, and Gabriel felt like she’d hit him if he opened his mouth as well, but Dell quickly rose from his chair and, without speaking, pulled her into a hug, allowing her to burst into sobs.

“Shh, li'l lady, ’s awright, ’s awkay… yer mom… jus’ leave 'er be… 'least yer dad ain’t mad at'chu-”

“ _I…don’t know who that is, but he’s right, Sammy, sweet dear.”_ , Sam’s father’s voice issued from Gabriel’s cellphone again, and Gabriel now moved to stand beside his girlfriend, an arm wrapped around her soothingly as she spoke to her father – or rather, was spoken to.   _“Your mother… the nurse heard her shout and she came into the room just in time to hear you say that she did ho-horrible things to Michael and that you are… oh, Sammie, my little glowing starlet, you… you have to know, I never… I never thought you-”_

“I-I-I kn-knew you di-didn’t think it, dad… oh, I n-never doubted… b-but mum is… she hates me… m-my own mother hates me, s-she thinks I… I don’t know, she th-thinks I let him, o-or encouraged him… I would never, dad,  _I would never!_ T-there hasn’t been a d-day past t-that I didn’t wish… that I didn’t  _h-hope_ -”

“ _M-me too, Sammie.”_ , the man on the other side said, his voice cracking finally and a few soft sobs sounding in the silence of the room, a silence that Gabriel used to speak up.

“C'mon, mon ange-”  Instantly, Sam relaxed into his touch, right at the same time that a surprised question issued from the telephone she still held.

“ _W-wait, who’s calling you his angel?  Sam, Damien said there was… he said you’d been, uh…”_

“Oh, nevermind what Damien told you – dad, I… maybe now isn’t the time yet to talk, okay?  I… h-how are you doing, considering?  I mean, m-mum might be…”  A soft sigh preceded William Tennant’s answer.

“ _I’m… coping.  I cried when they told me last night, of course: n-now it’s just… waiting for that biopsy.  Waiting, and hoping… and praying. Praying to God, Mary and Michael.”_ Sam gave a watery snort and then sighed.

“Dad… I’ll call you back in half an hour, okay?  I… s-sorry, but I… need a little cooldown time.  God, I am so  _frustrated_ with mum-”

“ _And yet, you still love her and worry about her, isn’t it so?”_ , her father asked shrewdly, causing Sam to nod, a more genuine smile on her features.

“Yes. Despite what mum put me through, despite the extra hurt and the extra bullshit she piled on… I still love her, and I still feel horrible… t-tell her she’s free to talk to me if she’s ready to admit, to herself and to me, that I didn’t… t-that I didn’t.”

“ _I’ll do that, Sammy, darling sweetheart.  I’ll, uh, wait for your call. Just… call the doctor and ask for me, or-”_

“I’ll manage, dad, really.”, Sam said, sighing before tacking on: “Talk to you again soon.”

“ _Yes, talk to you again soon.  Love you, sweetheart.”_  Sam disconnected the call and then turned to Dell first, her eyes conspicuously wet.

“…Dell, t-thanks.  You’re a sweetheart of a man-”

“Ah, ’s nuthin’.  …Yew gon’ be okay, li'l lady?”, the southerner asked, to which Sam responded with a nod and a gentle pull on Gabriel’s arm to emphasize her next words.

“I’ll… a little herbal tea and a quiet moment or two with Gabriel will soothe me.  And in half an hour, I’m calling my dad again.  W-without worrying about my mum a-and her… her… just no worries about it.” She walked to the door, and Gabriel meant to follow right at her heels, but Dell held him back for a quick whispered aside.

“Son… her momma’s a right witch, but she’s prob'ly still distraught.  Don’t git Sam worked up 'gainst her none, awright?”

“J'sais, mon ami.  I know Sam’s mom is… what she is.  J'comprends.  An’ you don’t gotta worry, all I’m doin’ is tellin’ her how great it is that her dad’s doing okay.  I’m focusin’ on  _that_ an’ I’m betting she’s sure as hell keepin’ that in mind too-”

“Gabriel?”, Sam asked, at the exact same moment as Dell relinquished his hold on his arm, giving Gabriel all the incentive he needed to walk briskly up to his girlfriend and, arm around her shoulders, gently guide her to their room again for the herbal tea and quiet moment she so desperately needed.

 

When Sam’s telephone rang again, the next evening, Sam hurriedly put down the shotgun shell she’d been filling with buckshot and picked up before the first ring had even ended.

“Sam Tennant.”

“ _Sam, darling, it’s me.”_ , her father’s voice flooded her ear, and she smiled instantly.  The previous night, she’d still been upset about her mother, and her father had been apprehensive as well, but a night’s sleep and another day of battling had brought with it a new calmth, not to mention Gabriel had very truthfully remarked that it was hard to feel tense after 'testin’ the soundproofing again’ that evening before their shower.   _“I’m not calling at a bad time, am I?_ ”, he asked, and she shook her head, verbally elaborating.

“You never call at a bad time, dad – it’s ten PM here, that makes it, uh…”

“ _A little after seven in the morning here.  …S-so, how are you doing today?”_ , he asked delicately, which got Sam to respond with the sigh he seemed to expect.   _“…Yes, me too.  Not quite how I imagined first talking to you again would go.  B-but your mum slept well thanks to the sedative they gave her after…”_

“After she shouted out her lungs at me – well, not to worry about me, Gabriel made sure I slept well.”

“ _…I’ve been meaning to ask you.  A-about your boyfriend, I mean.  Damien… well, last time I saw him was before the trial, of course, but he did tell me about your seeing someone and that it was pretty complicated. I… didn’t pry-”_

“Dad, being curious about whether or not your daughter’s doing well is not 'prying’, it’s… it’s  _normal_. And I could use a little bit of normal after the  _utter shite_ I’ve been through.  …So what do you want to know about Gabriel?  Or about our relationship.  I’ve got no secrets from you, dad, you’re my  _father_ , if I can’t tell you about it then it’s wrong.”, she said quickly as she heard her father inhale, probably ready to say something about 'respecting her privacy’ and 'not meaning to embarrass my sweet daughter’, causing the man to chuckle before asking his first question.

“ _…Well, Damien wasn’t able to tell me much about Gabriel, just that he isn’t the same age as you and that he works for the 'competition’ but somehow you both work for the same employer still?  I… what he told me about your work didn’t make much sense to me, I’m sorry to admit-”_  Sam rolled her eyes and interrupted her father softly and kindly, trying to avoid that he’d get sidetracked.  She felt eager all of a sudden to enlighten her father about Gabriel and about her new employment – it’d take her mind off the predicament with her mother.

“Well, it is somewhat complicated, and so my relationship with Gabriel doesn’t seem as straightforward as it is.  …I work for a company called Builders’ League United or BLU for short.  Gabriel works for a company called Reliable Excavation and Demolition – abbreviated to RED.  But both BLU and RED are owned by the same holding company called Mann Co.  We’re fighters of sorts-”

“ _Damien did explain that – I… thought I’d have a heart attack back then, but now, I’ve seen some of the 'fights’ and Damien secretly sent me the 'Beginner’s Guide to Team Fortress’ for Christmas so I understand it a lot better.  …So, this Gabriel of yours-”_  Sam grinned at the way her father said it, his tone seemingly telling her his thoughts a lot better than if he spoke them out loud.

“Well, let’s start off by what Damien told you about him, and what you  _think_ about him.  That way, it’ll be easier.”  William Tennant took a soft breath and then spoke quietly and calmly, though that apprehensive undertone didn’t leave his voice.

“ _Like I said, dear, he’s not your age, he works for the competition, and that he is… well, a complex man-”_

“I ought to have a talk with my dear brother, I think.  Well, most of that is true.  I have to fight Gabriel professionally; he is thirty-six-”

“ _Dear Lord, that’s… quite a lot older, isn’t it, Samantha, darling?”_ , her father interrupted her, as she had guessed he would, and she rolled her eyes as she replied..

“Yes, he’s eleven years older than me, he’s had his birthday about two weeks ago now while mine’s still upcoming – but his age isn’t what matters to me, dad, it’s that he looks at me and it’s like there’s just me and him in the world.  It’s that he kisses me and the world might as well explode around us without either of us noticing.  And, well, don’t get me started on the rest.”, she said meekly, which had her father sigh.

“ _Well, I suppose you are right, love is the most important factor in the story of you and your boyfriend.  …So, uh, tell me a little about his being 'complex’.  From the way Damien said it, I guessed he’s had his share of, uh, battles of the mind…”_  Sam could kiss her father for his flawless understanding of Gabriel’s muddled situation and for knowing instinctively that there was more to the situation than Gabriel’s past sins.  It made her tone just a little warmer as she spoke of them.

“Well, before I came onto BLU, Gabriel was a very troubled man – he has pyromania and he blames himself for his mother’s death now almost twelve years ago, and to cope with the guilt and all, he took to liquid self-medication as well as… well, sleeping around-”

“ _Sleeping around?  Are there any other women on your team or his?”_

“No, dad, but I was getting to that.  Gabriel is bisexual, but he had a preference for men.  Or maybe he didn’t get as emotionally attached to men, I’m not exactly sure.  But-”

“ _A-and you’re certain he’s, uh, not gotten any unwelcome, uh…”_ , her father started, prompting a snort from Sam as she remembered Gabriel’s medical examination and the STD test.

“Believe me, the company had the same fear, and they had him tested for it. …Anyway, so Gabrel had a boyfriend on his team – Billy, his team’s scout – but he still also frequently slept with his team’s sniper, medic and demolitions expert, as well as my team’s sniper.” She allowed her father a little room to react or to link the titles to the job descriptions, and when he didn’t speak up, she continued with the beginnings of a grin on her features: “Anyway, that was until I joined BLU.  He… we talked the first weekend, when both our teams head out for drinks in the town, and he… well, I suppose I have to say  _we_ made a connection.  It took about two months for us to get properly together, but… despite the fact that he preferred men, he dumped his boyfriend for me; and despite the fact that I was still grieving for Michael, I couldn’t help but want him,  _need_ him if I’m honest.  He… was there for me at the exact right time…”

“ _I understand.  And from what Damien told me about the two of you… he said, I believe, 'anyone wanting to break them apart is a fool’, so you and your boyfriend must be… awfully close, and deeply passionate.  A little like me and your mother used to be.”_ Sam blinked at that information, speaking before she could stop herself.

“Mum as… dad, are you sure we’re talking about the same woman here?  The only passion mum had was a passionate dislike for anything that didn’t fit her picture of the ideal world.”

“ _Your mother didn’t turn into that overnight, darling sweetheart.  She… was just like you at your age – fierce, outspoken, warm and caring… I still remember we met in the park at a summer concert of a band we both knew and we… heh.  How did you say it again?  We made a connection.  Or two.”_

“God, dad, I did  _not_ mean it like that!”, Sam said with heavily feigned disgust in her voice, which got her father to snort and continue as though she hadn’t spoken at all.

“ _We got married in the spring of '75, and we tried very hard for a baby but didn’t have any success.  Your mum became preoccupied by the thought of a baby more than I did, I have to admit.  After a year of trying, she went back to school to get an accountancy degree, which she got… and then she got the offer to work a summer internship at Gleeson Accountancy, during which we finally had a lucky, uh, happenstance.  They offered her a fixed position at the end of August even though she was pregnant and she…  At first I thought it was the pregnancy hormones, you see, when she became a bit of a control freak, but Damien was born and the need to keep everything neatly managed didn’t subside.  She… I think she felt that, at age thirty-two and with a family to support, she had the_ duty  _to provide for us.  And she honestly believed that her job was all that kept us from going under.  Even when we had the gas station-”_

“Y-yeah, she kept working in London – I never understood why.  I mean, she didn’t exactly support you much-”, Sam said, biting her lip and amending her own train of thoughts loudly.  “Of course, but mum thought she  _was_ supporting you, just not the way anyone else would consider 'supporting your husband’.  She believed the gas station would go belly-up any time, she honestly thought it… God, mum… how did you manage, dad? Scratch that, how did  _mum_ manage without going insane?”  Her father sighed and clearly sat down, judging by the soft sound of a creak in the background.

“ _Your mum… I don’t know how she kept herself going, but she did.  You were born seven years after Damien, and she… was a lot cooler towards you.  Back in the early days of her… new mindset.. she was still a doting mother to Damien and warm and loving towards me. After that, we became – there’s no gentler way to say it –_ objects _, in a way.  Items in her life she had to maintain, to whose needs she had to see.  There was… little room for_ love  _in that story anymore.  And seven years after you, we had Michael – by then, she was already forty-five, and she was… very au-fait about being a mother to a young child.  …A-anyway, I… I did my best to give you and Michael everything you needed.  Warmth, love, compassion, a shoulder to cry on.  Damien, she always… she had a much better attachment to him.”_

“Dad, you did great for me and Michael, you really did – but Michael… he saw how close mum and Damien were and he wanted that too.  You tried to replace a mother’s love but-”

“ _But that’s impossible, I know, sweetheart.  …A-anyway, uh, I should go. Your mum will be back from the additional tests they needed any minute-”_

“Dad, she… she never hit  _you_ , did she?”, Sam asked apprehensively.  She could take her mother hitting her for what she perceived as 'failure’ – which, admittedly, made more sense now that she knew that her mother had genuinely believed that her job was all that had kept their family afloat – but if she’d hit her father, the man that she loved, the man that had kept their family  _together_ … To her relief, her father’s answer was soft-spoken but calm.

“ _She never laid a finger on me.  And as for hitting you and Michael, she… never wanted to hurt you.  She never hit you to hurt you, just because she… felt powerless.  She worried about you a  lot when you were abroad, even though she played it off as 'worry about our good name’.  And she worried about Michael too.  But she should’ve showed that to you and to him as well…  Sam, darling, I need to go, okay? Talk to you again soon?”_ , he asked, and Sam smiled, nodding.

“'Course, dad.  Call me when the results of those tests and that biopsy are in, alright?  I…”  Her voice trailed off as she was unable to find the right words to communicate to her father that she worried, but he seemed to guess nonetheless what she meant.

“ _I’ll tell you as soon as we know – and I’ll tell your mum that you worry as much about her as she worries about you.  Even if it doesn’t seem to you like she’s worried about you, she… that argument you had with her made her think.  She’s… different now.  Less angry. Anyway, talk to you again soon, darling.”_ He disconnected the call and left Sam staring at the equipment around her before heaving a sigh.

“…Best get started on this, the men depend on me doing my job…”  Then, however, she wondered whether that was what her mother had told herself every day during the commute to London and she sighed, shaking her head.  “I’m doing this because I love it, and that’s why I’ll enjoy it.  I am not my mother.”  However, as she gathered her tools and her hands shook ever so slightly, she felt the need to whisper the reassurance quietly to herself again: “…I am not my mother…”, and she caught herself wishing that it felt more like the truth and less like wishful thinking.

 

“…Guys, I need to go to the bathroom.  If anyone orders the next round, make mine a ginger ale.  And stop Gabriel from making it a  _Canadian_   _whisky_ again, I thought I’d been drugged after last time-”, Sam said, to which Gabriel felt the need to react a little more vehemently than the situation justified normally.

“Hey, t'as apprécié ce geste-là!  Ya said ya  _liked_ the taste!”  Instantly, Sam sighed, and Gabriel could see the frown that had graced her features for the past three days reappearing, causing Dell to look at her soothingly and Grant to cast  _him_ a look that said 'son, watch what you say’, which got him to add to his previous statement.  “Okay, I’ll keep it a plain ginger ale, mon coeur, j’t'jure…”

“Thank you, Gabriel, that’s very considerate.”, Sam said, her tone making it clear she wasn’t in a good mood – before he could add another apology to mollify her, she’d risen from her chair and walked over to the door leading to the restrooms.  No sooner was she out of earshot than Grant turned to him, his tone of disapproval just a fraction away from scathing.

“Gabe, son, yew ain’t really makin’ Sam  _relax_ any by arguin’ her point.”

“J'sais, okay?!”, Gabriel said curtly – more curtly than the engineer deserved, even if it felt good to implicitly vent his frustration that way, so Gabriel sighed and bowed his head before apologising. “Sorry… god, Sammy ain’t the only one that’s high-strung.  Sam’s mom… the way she reacted on the telephone disgusted me.”

“Yeah, well, y'know whut ah said 'bout her, Gabriel, pardner.”, Dell said, drinking the last of his beer and motioning for the bartender to come over.  “Ah’ll have 'nother cold one.”

“Oh, uh, 'nother cold one fer me too.”, Grant said, gently nudging Pierre, who had been so busy looking at Grant and Gabriel that he hadn’t noticed the bartender coming up to them.

“Oh, me-  I mean, uh, cognac, s'il vous plaît – eef you please, with zee ice cubes…”

“Gabriel?”, Grant said, nudging the RED pyro next, and Gabriel nodded softly.

“Uh… gimme a malt, a ginger ale an’ another Canadian whisky, with ice and a lemon slice in the glass.  Oh, and an umbrella.”

“Jeez, ain’t you glitzy today.”, the bartender reacted, to which Gabriel grinned crookedly and shook his head.

“It’s for Sam, connard, an’ you’d better make that a fuckin’  _sparkly_ umbrella.” The bartender gave him an exasperated look but didn’t argue the point, and when he returned a minute later, he’d indeed plunked a metallic-colored umbrella into the glass with Sam’s drink, which shimmered softly in the dim lights of the bar.  Grant looked like he had some choice disapproving words to share with him about the fact that he’d ordered Sam another whisky-infused drink despite her telling him not to, but the pyro spoke up first.  “…I know she liked the drink last time, an’ I want to make sure she’s got another one in case she wants it.  I don’t want her drinkin’ this an’ thinking it’s a regular ginger ale, like last time, though – that’s why I asked for the sparkly fuckin’ umbrella in the first place.” Grant’s eyes widened and then he nodded, slowly but surely.  Dell, however, was the one to perfectly summarize the opinion of the other men at the table.

“Son, all yeh kin do fer Sam – all  _any'a us_ kin do fer Sam – is listen tuh 'er an’ tell her it’ll be okay.  Don’t bring it up yerself none but don’t change the subject neither if'n she brings up 'er mom.  An’ don’t try an’ 'ease 'er up’ neither, Gabriel – ’s an easy answer tuh a difficult problem-”  The look Dell gave him spoke volumes about what he actually meant, and Gabriel found himself rising from the table slowly, belying the quickly rising anger and disgust within him.

“You’re goddamn lucky Sam loves ya like you’re her second dad, Dell Conagher, or you’d be  _crawlin’_ back to the base 'cause of that.”  He walked off outside, ignoring the looks of surprise he got from the others, fuming internally.  So great was his distress and his need for a cooldown period that he didn’t hear approaching footsteps at all until a soft, slightly apprehensive voice drifted his way.

“…Mon ami?”  He looked up to see Pierre standing there, together with Arsène and – Gabriel’s heart gave a slight squeeze – Sam, all three of them looking like they were ready to run at a moment’s notice.

“I came back from the toilet and Grant and Dell were looking like you punched them in the gut, mon amour, and Pierre said Dell probably said the wrong thing-”

“I… mon dieu, tout qui m'a arrêté d'lui assommer, c'était que tu lui aime comme un père, mon ange, mon coeur… mais ce qu'il m'a dit, j'veux  _vraiment_ lui  _tuer_ pour ça, pour dire cela… pour même le  _penser_ , d'Lander-”

“Oh, mon dieu, this ees about Lander?”, Pierre said, surprised – Gabriel could see utter confusion flit over his girlfriend’s face but then was forced to focus on his team’s spy again when he continued talking: “I sought 'e 'ad eensulted  _you_ , mon ami, but you… you are angry because 'e eensulted  _Lander_?”

“There’s rules in life, an’ one of those rules is 'n'montre jamais du mépris vers les morts’.  Lander n'pouvait plus s'défendre, donc c'est à moi d'le faire.”

“Gabriel, I… don’t know what Dell said, but he… I doubt he meant to insult Lander.  Apart from you, Dell was the only one that Lander liked, you told me.”

“Yeah… But he… it wasn’t Lander’s fault that… the  _pyromania_ drove us to it, not… it’s not 'an easy answer to a difficult problem’, il n'y a rien 'facile’ à propos de consommation excessive d'alcool la façon dont Lander et moi avons fait!”, Gabriel stammered, all his anger flowing from him as he aired his mind.  “J'le  _sais_! Lander m'a dit qu'on devrait en arrêter!  We tried but we failed, an’ in the end we figured that at least with drinking we didn’t do harm to anyone but ourselves-”

“Drinking. Dell had a crack at you about ordering me that Canadian whisky anyway?”, Sam guessed.  Gabriel sighed and nodded.

“Oui. He didn’t  _say_ it, but the way he looked at me… he said 'don’t try an’ loosen her up, that’s an easy solution to a difficult problem’ –  I  _know_ that, I knew that even when Lander got  _me_ to drink with him… and just… the way he said it, made it sound like Lander was goin’ outta his way to corrupt me or somethin’.  That’s not what it was.  Drowning your problems in alcohol isn’t a solution, it’s just another problem, but it’s also what’s left when all the other options run out.  Et j'ai pas… that wasn’t why I ordered ya the whisky, mon ange, and you know that.  I just… ya liked it last time, and I figured you might want one again an’ I wanted to give you the option – if you didn’t drink it, I woulda, or it’d just go down the drain when Gareth cleared the table…”

“But you know that Dell’s only looking out for me, right?”  When Gabriel nodded, Sam did so as well, rolling her eyes and taking his hand. “…Okay, come on, you and Dell are going to sit down at the table while I have a talk to  _both_ of you.”, she said, biting her lip and pulling him along.  Gabriel was so baffled by her sudden vigor that he didn’t find it within himself to resist.  Before he knew it, Sam had him sit down at a small table off to the side, with Dell sitting opposite him, and she herself sitting right next to him.  “Okay, Dell, you didn’t know it, and you didn’t mean it, but you’ve insulted Gabriel by suggesting that he was trying to get me to start up drinking – and what’s worse, you suggested Lander started him up.  You should tell Gabriel that you understand that both  he and Lander had good reason to do what they did.  Also, Gabriel just told me that Lander and he tried several times to quit, without much success, so they  _know_ drinking isn’t the answer.”

“Ah-”, the engineer said, only to get interrupted by Sam who now turned to him, Gabriel found.

“And Gabriel, you’ve got to stop ordering me cocktails and such and defending it with 'in case she wants one’ – right now, that’s the  _last_ thing on my mind.  You know Dell is right when he says drinking is nothing but an easy solution to a difficult situation – what’s more, you said that drinking is another problem.  You’ve been doing great drinking malt beers all evening and resisting the urge to order yourself more than two glasses of vanilla gin – don’t order them for  _me_ instead.”

“B-bien sûr, j'te jure, j'fais plus.”, Gabriel conceded, bowing his head softly.  He meant to add on that all he wanted was for Sam to feel better, but she seemed to not want him to talk to her.  He was the first one that looked at Dell and held out is hand.  “Dell, mon ami… let’s bury these past ten minutes an’ just…  I know ya didn’t mean to upset me, an’ I know you an’ Lander got along well. I… he was my friend-”

“Jus’ a friend, Da- Gabriel?”, Dell asked, and Gabriel sighed, shrugging.

“It was difficult, but we weren’t like me an’ Billy, and we certainly weren’t like me an’ Sammy.  I maybe loved him, yeah, but not… pas d'amour grand, mais d'amour quand même.  Not the love of my life, sure, but love all the same.  An’ anyway, he didn’t love me.  To him, I was nothin’ but a guy that he sometimes slept with an’  that he felt safe talkin’ to.  …But then, he already told ya that a million times.  He told me ya kept askin’ him about it.  An’ he kept givin’ you the same answer, word for word.”  He lifted his hand just a little again, causing Dell to look at it again.  “…So, what do ya say, Dell, mon cher?  Forget the past ten minutes?”

“…Awright, Gabriel, pardner.”, Dell finally conceded, gripping his hand and shaking it before turning to Sam.  “An’ yew, ’s we okay too?”

“Of course we are, Dell, you big  _ostrich_.”, she admitted with a soft smile, taking the glass she’d brought to the table and sipping it.  Gabriel grinned as he saw that it was the Canadian whisky he’d ordered her, but true to his truce with Dell he didn’t comment on the fact, instead looking at the Texan with an honestly appreciative look.

“Dell, mon cher, let me buy ya a cold one.”  For a second, he was afraid that Sam would take offense in the offer – 'beer’ was 'drinking’, after all – or that Dell would decline, but the southerner chuckled and nodded in acceptance, and Sam smiled a little more broadly as well.  “Yo,  _Gareth_! A cold one an’ a glass of vanilla gin!”

“With a  _sparkly umbrella_?”, he asked, and Gabriel winked at Sam before shouting back his answer.

“Bien sûr, man, anything to glitz it up!”  Turning to Sam, he added under his breath: “An’ after that glass and yours are finished, I’m takin’ ya back to base, Sammy, que Dieu rougisse en nous regardant.” Sam blushed softly, telling him she was at least not adverse to his  _other_ preferred form of solace – and that, if nothing else, was the victory he’d been looking for all evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (all Antwerp dialect in this chapter is 100% genuine)


	46. The dark is too hard to beat

At first Sam thought it was inside of her dream that she heard the sound of her cellphone, ringing without being seen – until Gabriel elbowed her in the side and her eyes flew open, and the ringing didn’t stop.  Her hands scrambled over to her bedside table, picking up her cellphone right when it stopped ringing, prompting her to sigh.

“Mmm, c’‘tait qui?”, Gabriel muttered, but Sam gave a huff and lay back down next to him, the telephone call forgotten – or, at least, that was the idea, because only a second after she’d closed her eyes, her telephone rang again.

“Who…?”, Sam groaned as she took a look who was calling her awake on a Sunday – even though it was already well past ten AM, she and Gabriel didn’t wake up until noon, especially not since they’d only fallen asleep a little past three AM.  A quick glance at the impossibly long number told her it was her parents’ home number – her mind was still too weary to calculate the time difference, but she figured it’d be evening for them at least, so maybe her father wanted to call her before heading to bed.  He’d done so a few times in the past week after he’d been allowed to return home – unfortunately, the hospital couldn’t allow him to stay with his wife, but he visited daily.  Damien had taken some time off from work to take care of his father – or perhaps it was more accurate to say that Damien worked from their parents’ house now, having delegated all of his on-site visits to the team leaders and teleconferencing with them twice every day.  Her cellphone’s ringtone grew louder, drawing her attention back to the matter at hand: she found herself answering the call with a press of her finger to the screen right before the second iteration of the loud dance sample she’d chosen as a ringtone.

“Y-yeah, this is Samantha Tennant.”

“ _S-samantha?”_  The voice was not her father’s, she was startled to find, but her  _mother’s_. Her surprise was only compounded when the other woman spoke up again and Sam was startled to hear how  _soft_ and  _demure_ her mother’s voice sounded, as if she’d been brainwashed completely overnight.  Was this soft-spoken, hesitant woman the same one that had yelled at her in the background only a day before?!   _“Samantha-”_

“Mum, i-it’s  _Sunday morning,_ you’d better not be calling to yell at me…”  Then, her sleep-riddled mind finally cooperated and she figured out the time back in Antwerp would have to be close to two AM, and she blinked.  “…Mum, it’s the middle of the night over there, why-?”

“ _Samantha, I had to call.  I… had a dream… a-about a chasm of sorts… I…s-stood on the edge, and… and then I heard…_ him _. Y-your brother, Michael.”_  Instantly, Sam’s heart skipped a beat, the imagery too familiar and too painful  _not_ to instantly ring a bell.  Standing on the edge of a cliff had been in Michael’s depression-fuelled dreams as well – in fact, it had been the imagery he’d also used in his farewell note, mailed to her… She meant to ask her mother what else she’d dreamt, but the woman didn’t need any prompt to speak of it:  _“…H-he told me_ e-everything _, Samantha… h-how much he loved you, how much he loved me… h-how badly he wanted me to… to just love him… how none of it all was anyone else’s fault… n-not your fault at all… h-he said… oh, he said he was finally, finally happy… he said he’d watch out for us f-from now on, f-fro-from up h-high…”_ Soft sobs sounded from the other end of the line for a few seconds before Amanda Tennant spoke again, her voice barely above a whisper but still carrying clearly through the speaker of her cellphone.  _“S-samantha, you-”_

“I swear, mum, I didn’t know about Michael!  If I’d known… i-if I’d even had the… the least indication… th-the faintest idea…  I would never – I w-would  _n-never!_ ”, she admitted – next to her, Gabriel sat up, looking at her in distress, but she waved her hand airily in front of herself to indicate that it was okay.  “I ran in there without thinking, without  _caring_ , because all I wanted was to find him and bring him out, b-but he didn’t… he didn’t want to be found or saved, mum, h-he… he was… I  _saw_ him. O-or what was left of him, anyway – m-mum, he  _wanted_ to go, you know that.”  A silence billowed on the other end before a heavy sigh followed.

“ _I… I know, yes.  I understand him now.  Oh, Samantha, I’ve…  I’m happy you still answered your telephone.”_  Sam intended to say that the main reason she’d answered was because she’d thought it was her father, but she swallowed the words again when she realized another thing, a very  _crucial_ thing.

“Mum… this is your  _home_ number… I… w-why aren’t you at the hospital anymore?”, she asked – Gabriel looped his arm around her gently, showing his support and soothing her just enough not to outright burst into tears as her mother answered.

“ _…I got the results of the biopsy and the extra scans they took.  I-it’s untreatable.  There’s masses on my liver and uterus as well.  They can’t take all of them away quickly enough, chemotherapy isn’t an option, and radiation treatment would only kill me faster.  The doctor didn’t say it like that but he didn’t have to, I_  know  _that’s why they sent me home.”_

“H-how long… how long?”, Sam asked quietly – Gabriel squeezed her a little closer just in time to get her to swallow a sob that had threatened to spill past her mental walls at her mother’s reply.

“ _The doctor said… a month is optimistic.  Most people with pancreatic cancer this advanced generally don’t live longer than a week past this stage.  But… well, he suggested a few things to prolong my chances – a healthier diet, some vitamin supplements… painkillers when it becomes painful…  H-he advised me to enjoy spending my remaining days at home, in the comfort of my own bed as opposed to the dismal hospital rooms they have here.  Still, it’s a far cry from the NHS.  I’m… not sad that they did send me home, you know.  I-if this is really it… then… then I would like to spend my last days with your dad and Damien.  ….A-and you?”_ , she asked hopefully – Sam knew what she meant, but she also knew that the company wouldn’t allow her to go home for anything but her mother’s funeral.  It caused her to sigh.

“M-mum, I’d  _love_ to be there, but… but I can’t, the company won’t let me leave.  I… it’s…”  She felt slightly apprehensive about the blow she’d just been forced to deal her brittle new understanding with her mother – after all, the woman had gone from slight disdain to outright hatred, and now from that to almost pleading remorse, so there was no telling whether she’d understand – but then, Amanda Tennant audibly licked her dry lips and spoke a little louder, some of her previous authority returning to her voice.

“ _Your father told me a little about your job whenever I was calm… and about your life…  I’m glad for you, t-that you… that you bounced back from your injuries, I mean.  …Sam, you… I need you to understand that I’m sorry-”_

“I know that, mum,  _dear God_ , now isn’t the time to talk about that anymore, I understand and I  _forgive you_. But…  _Christ_ , there’s so much I wanted to still tell you, ask you, share with you. About… did dad tell you about Gabriel?”

“ _That’s your boyfriend, right?  The man that’s older than you and that’s been less than angelic before he met you.  Yes, I’ve heard about him – extensively, from both your father and Damien.  They’re both stumped as to what attracted you to him in the first place.  I think I’ve got a good idea, though.”_ Her mother’s voice sounded a little disapproving, and Sam sighed, but then, surprisingly, the woman corrected herself with a sigh of her own.   _“I’m sorry, that… that sounded like I disapprove of your happiness. Samantha, I just meant… your father and I, when_ we  _met, nobody understood what drew us together either, we were such opposites.  But he… he was charming, and funny, and he had this look in his eyes every time our eyes met that made my skin erupt in goosebumps…  And I’m betting it’s the same for you and your boyfriend.  …So, I’ll save on the needless beating about the bush – is it really as serious as your father tells me between you and him?”_

“Every bit as serious, mum.  He’s the man that I’m going to spend the rest of my life with, I’m positive.”, Sam said, being rewarded for her candor by her mother’s soft chuckle and a kiss from Gabriel.  “He’s wonderful to me, mum – I couldn’t dream of anyone better.  As a matter of fact, I think _no one_ could dream of a better man for me than Gabriel.  …Oh, but there’s so much I wanted to tell you about him, about how it’s absurd at times how much I love him, about how I’d love to one day have children with him… about how every time he kisses me, fireworks are lit in my heart…”

“ _You’ve always loved your fireworks.”_ , her mother said – it was that one mention of her profession and her passion, finally  _proudly_ spoken by her mother, that brought out a soft sob from Sam at long last. Her mother reacted in a heartbeat, further adding to Sam’s feeling of overwhelmed joy.   _“…Oh no, did I… I mean, I didn’t mean…”_

“M-mum, I know… i-it’s just… ah, all I ever wanted was to hear you sound proud of my job… o-of me…”, she admitted, swallowing the lump that had suddenly risen in her throat and then continuing more calmly: “…I’ve always loved you, mum, but that… that was always the most painful, that you didn’t seem to consider my job a proper  _job_ …”

“ _…I know… I know, Sam, and I’m sorry, I’ve treated you poorly – no,_ dysmally _– in the past; c-can you forgive an old, miserable woman-?”_  It was then that Sam remembered what her father had told her before, about how his wife used to be and why she’d turned out the way she was, and she instantly knew that the knowledge of her terminal illness had made her mother realize for herself how she’d become. That, or the doctor had helped the process a little, she added mentally as she spoke up.

“Mum, you’ve done so much for all of us, you gave us a good home, decent clothes, good food… but you kind of lost sight of the fact that we would’ve been happier with a little less material things and a little more  _love_ and  _understanding_ … but that’s all in the past now.  All that matters is now.  All that matters is that we’re talking again…”  Her mother’s smile was audible, Sam found – her yawn, which was loud and long, even more so, and Sam winked at Gabriel before speaking to her mother in a soft tone.  “…Mum, I think you should get some more sleep.  Now that we’ve talked a little, I think you’ll sleep a little more deeply, right?”

“ _…O-okay, yes… but Samantha… w-will you call again today?”_

“Mum, I’ve called dad  _every day_ , sometimes  _twice_ a day – I’m not about to break that habit!  …I’ll call tonight – that’s around noon for you, okay?”

“ _…I’ll… okay.  Around noon.  I… I’ll be waiting.”_

“You’d better.”, Sam said before adding in a warm, somewhat pleading whisper: “Love you, mum…”

“ _Love you, Samantha.  …Oh, if only you were here, I’d love very much to give you a kiss on the forehead again like I gave you when you were just a little girl…  Goodnight.”_  Her mother disconnected the call, and Sam lay back onto her pillow, looking at the ceiling for a few seconds before Gabriel spoke up softly next to her.

“…So your mom and you… you’re all good again?”

“Yes, well, I think now isn’t the right time to think of how horrible a parent she was – she’s sorry, she said, and for now that’s enough for me.”, Sam admitted.  Gabriel looked at her for a second longer before shrugging and crawling up closer to her, hugging her softly.

“Then… alors, ça suffit pour moi aussi.  Donc, mon ange… mon coeur… I’m the guy that you want kids with one day, huh?”, he asked with a grin, causing Sam to chuckle softly and look him right in the eye.

“Don’t act so surprised, mon amour,  _you’re_ the one who brought up children  _first_  – and if I remember correctly, you said you wanted them with  _me_ , too…”  She kissed him before he could answer, and all too soon her mind was as far from her mother’s situation as it could be.

 

“That were a fine victory, yew guys!”, Grant said as the RED team moved back to the respawn room, and Gabriel couldn’t help but grin broadly but wearily.  He’d spent his morning chasing Archie and making sure the scout died screaming bloody murder and vowing to mess him up with his baseball bat.  When the scout had returned with his  _Boston Basher –_  a bat adorned with several strips of spikes wound around it – he’d taken intense pleasure in dodging his blows and causing the scout to wound  _himself_ , which in turn had gotten him  _more_ promises of revenge.  But infinitely more satisfying was the time when he’d been distracting Dell to allow Graeme to launch a few stickybombs his way: the level three sentry Dell had been painstakingly defending from both Gabriel and Graeme had fired rockets at him at a certain point, and he’d airblasted them back, which had cost him every ounce of fuel he still had in his Backburner but which had demolished the sentry before the eyes of a very bemused Graeme, who had then taken out his favored bottle and had smashed it over the head of the Texan engineer before he could reach his shotgun.  Sure, Gabriel had died there due to bloodloss, but he’d survived his wounds long enough to see the outcome, and next time he’d seen Dell, Sam had been with him and he hadn’t dared risk it without backup.  In the end, he’d been staying with Grant as his own team’s engineer moved his gear up to make sure their control point wasn’t captured by the BLUs while they were busy taking over  _their_ control point.

“…Ah, yeah, it was a good win…”, he echoed faintly, harvesting a few chuckles from the rest of the men.

“Good? It was  _excellent_ , private!”, John boomed, and Billy nodded eagerly.  Gabriel remembered that the scout had been responsible for a death or two of Sam’s while he’d been roasting his boyfriend to perfection, and he snorted.

“Donc, okay, yeah, it was a great fuckin’ win.  Then again, how could it not be, mes amis?  We all kicked BLU’s ass today!”  They arrived at the respawn room in the meantime: the doors rolled open automatically and the men grinned, dispersing to the benches to eat their lunches. Gabriel sat down in his usual spot in between Grant, who was eagerly digging into two thick whole-wheat slices of bread with fried bacon and cottage cheese in between, and Pierre who more daintily sank his teeth in two thinner slices of brown bread with cream cheese and walnuts in between.  Just as he got ready to start on his own lunch – two sandwiches with every vegetable he’d been able to cram in between alongside a slice of cooked ham and a thin slice of unaged cheese, the same lunch Sam would be having – his cellphone rang and he groaned.  John, from the other side of the respawn room, looked up at him and spoke half-mockingly.

“What’s the matter, Dante, Sam need to hear your voice?”  Gabriel made a half-rude gesture in response before checking the caller ID and seeing, to his utter surprise, that it was his sister.  He took the call and instantly switched to French.

“Oui, c'est Gabriel – qu'est-ce qui se passe, Belle?  Tout okay 'vec toi?”

“ _Ah, oui… alors, c'est à dire… Gabri’, j'veux que tu es le premier qui saura mes nouvelles…  Louis et moi, on va… on va l'essayer.”_ It took a moment for the true meaning of his sister’s words to sink in, but when it did, Gabriel had to bite his lip to keep from cheering. He’d been worried somewhat for his sister ever since he found out that she was expecting another baby at forty-one.  Of course he knew that there was a great risk of deformations and mental problems, but to him it felt horrible for any baby’s life to be ended simply because of a  _possibility_ that it had problems; so to now hear that Annabelle and her husband had decided to go ahead and have their third baby anyway, despite the risks, was a source of joy to him.

“Mais ça, c'est vraiment fantastique, soeurette!  …T'sais déjà-”

“ _C'est un garçon d'nouveau, et nous aimerions l'apeller Jonathan.  Jonathan Gabriel Jordan.”_

“Jonathan Gabriel Jordan… m-mais… t'veux dire… m-moi comme son parrain?”, he said, utterly flabbergasted.  The sandwich he still held in the hand that wasn’t busy pressing his phone to his ear fell back onto his lunchbox which sat on his knees, but he could care less that tomato and grated carrot spilled from it.  His sister had just asked him to be her new son’s godfather.  If there was any doubt in anyone’s mind that his father and sister had fully accepted him back into their hearts and their lives, this ended it.  Next to him, Pierre looked at him with the beginnings of a joyful smile on his features: normally Gabriel would mind that, but now he grinned back eagerly.  “Oh, mais que j'vais être l-le parrain le plus enthousiaste, le plus attentif… ah, mon coeur, que… que t’m'as surprise, Belle!  …D-donc quand?”

“ _Août, le vingt-quatrième d'août.  Oh, Gabri… si on l'baptise en novembre, peut t'être là?”_  Gabriel laughed loudly, causing everyone to look at him.

“Mon dieu, Annabelle, si on n'me laisse pas venir chez toi et Louis pour ça…  I’ll be there for the baptism of my first godchild, merde, et lequel ou laquelle qui essayeras à m'empêcher d'y être, oh, qu'il le regrettera…”, he said emphatically, causing Grant to turn to him in mingled alarm and happiness and his sister to hastily speak up in the telephone.

“ _Pas d'problème si t'peux pas, Gabri-”_

“Dante, son, not that ah’m not happy fer yeh – an’, uh, congrats t'yer sister, ah guess, wouldn’t know who else yew’d be speakin’ French tuh – but don’t say sheeyit like tha’ or yeh’ll git in trouble, pardner-”

“Okay, allright,  _bien_ ,.. Hang on a sec, Belle, mes collègues deviennent un p'tit peu  _trop_ curieux, j'vais dehors…”, he said, pressing the telephone against his ear with his right hand while he closed his lunch box again with his left – one of the perks of being ambidextrous was that he could multitask, he mused absent-mindedly with a grin – and then he pressed his smartphone against his shoulder with that same hand as he glared at the group.  “The first one to touch that lunch box is a fuckin’ dead man, t'as tout compris?  I need to talk to my sister in peace an’ quiet – and when I get back, there’s still sandwiches in there or I’m takin’ Sammy’s flamethrower and I’m roasting this entire respawn room, spare clothes and all.  J'rigoles pas.”, he said, though he grinned as he spoke, and Billy summed up the general opinion in one sentence.

“Yeah, like we’d  _dare_ that, Gabe, ya psycho fuckah.”  Gabriel snorted loudly before pressing the phone back against his ear as he walked outside.

“…Sorry about that, but those connards got stomachs that are black holes, j'te jure – last week I had to share Grant’s sandwiches because  _someone_ ate mine.  …Donc, j'ai voulu t'parler de quelque chose, Belle.  T'sais qu'est-ce qui s'passait avec les parents d'ma Sammy, ouais?”, he asked superfluously, already expecting his sister’s answer before she even voiced it.

“ _T'mas apellé dès que t'as appris toi-même, donc, oui, je sais.  Sa mère, oui?”_

“She called us outta bed last Sunday-”

“ _To shout at Samantha?”_ , Annabelle interrupted, and Gabriel sighed mournfully.

“No – at first I  _thought_ it, and so did Sammy, mais sa mère avait eu une… alors, pas un cauchemar, mais une rêve, d'son fils décedé… qu'il lui parlait, lui disait qu'il est heureux maintenant, qu'il les garde d'là-haut…”

“ _…C-could be a side effect of the medication-”_ , his sister said, but Gabriel shook his head.

“T'comprends pas, soeurette, elle a rêvé qu'elle se trouvait au bord d'une précipice – Sammy’s brother, Michael, wrote about that in his suicide note, which he mailed to Sam.  Sammy’s mom _couldn’t know that_ , she never saw the note…”  Gabriel waited for his sister’s explanation, but the quiet on the other end of the line lasted for a good deal longer than he’d expected before she finally sighed.

“ _…Well, we can’t always know everything in life, I suppose… so she dreamt of her son?”_ , she asked, and Gabriel focused on the more important part of his story.

“Yeah, and she an’ Sam patched things up again.  She also said the results of her tests are in, she doesn’t have long anymore.  She has… it’s in her liver and uterus as well.  Just about everywhere, j'pense. Donc, elle est a sa maison maintenant.  She asks Sam every day whether she’s coming to visit still, and that breaks her up, j'te jure.  We can’t take time off from this job… sure, when m'dame Tennant  _dies_ ,  _then_ we get time off to go to her funeral…”  Gabriel found himself gritting his teeth impatiently, feeling sick to his stomach again with the demands of their job.  In his ear, his sister sighed sympathetically and spoke in a tone that seemed consoling to him.

“ _…J'suis désolé, pour toi et pour elle… but still, it’s better for Samantha and her mother to make amends now, even if it’s only over the telephone.  Imagine if there were still hard feelings between them when… when it’s time…”_ A heavy sigh was Gabriel’s only answer.  He’d thought of that possibility as well, ever since Sam had known that her mother potentially had cancer, and he had to admit that the way things had gone wasn’t the best option but it was at least a better option than the two women never patching things up.  Sam’s heart would’ve broken even more if her mother had remained bitter and adamant until the very end.  Then, he changed the subject: thinking about Sam’s mother still gave him a vague feeling of nausea in the pit of his stomach, a remnant of the anger he still bore against her due to the way she’d treated her own daughter.  Instead, he focused on something else entirely.  His sister had sounded unnaturally shy when she’d spoken before, and her choice of words was archaic, showing she’d been at a loss for words, something that was both rare and somewhat unsettling to him.

“…T'as dû dire à une d'tes patients qu'son temps serait plus limité qu'il a pensé?”, Gabriel asked, and Annabelle’s reaction was unmistakably awkward.

“ _A-alors, quelle sorte de question est-ce que tu poses, Gabri?!  You really want to know if I’ve had the displeasure of telling one of my patients… t-that he or she…”_

“Okay, bien, j'ai pas voulu t'faire te sentir mauvais du tout…”, the pyro admitted, sighing again and speaking his mind.  “J'sais pas… Sam forgave her mom an’ said that now isn’t the time to talk to her about the shit she got up to, the way she treated her an’ her brother… but that means it’s never gonna be 'the time’ for it. She… si elle n'parle pas maintenant-”

“ _Je pense bien que Sam veut que ces gestes de malheur soient enterrées avec sa mère.”_ , his sister interrupted, causing Gabriel to halt instantly and his sister to repeat the statement in plain English: _“Everything her mother did that she feels is bad, I think Sam intends for it to be buried alongside her.  And that’s_ good _, Gabriel.  You shouldn’t dwell too long on the past, frérot, or you won’t live now, where it matters, tu sais?”_  Gabriel sighed and conceded that his sister was right in the same breath.

“Ouais, bien, j'comprends.  Sam was bein’ the reasonable one again – an’ it’s her that got hurt, her and her little brother, not me, so… if she forgives her mom, then I should forgive her as well.  She seemed genuinely sorry, too.”  Slowly, he started smiling, musing that it felt better to let go than to hold on to his grudge against the authorative woman that he’d never met: that thought was one he voiced to his sister as well, just to make sure she knew that he was taking her advice.  “…Bien, j'me sens mieux comme ci.  Merci pour m'dire quoi faire, Belle, ma chère soeurette.”

“ _De rien, Gabri’.  Alors, j'vais te laisser – you said something about lunch so…  Have a good day.”_

“D'même.”, Gabriel said before ending the call, grinning as he went back inside where he found Billy hastily shutting up mid-story, causing him to bark out loudly: “Alors, Will, p'tit connard, if there’s _anything_ wrong with those sandwiches,  _anything at all_ , I’m crammin’ them down  _your_ throat, t'a compris?!”

“H-hey, I didn’t do nothin’!”, the scout said, paling and looking at their fellow mercenaries for support but receiving none; Gabriel, meanwhile, walked over to Grant, who handed him his lunch box with a clearly exasperated look.

“What did he do, Grant?”, Gabriel asked under his breath, checking over his sandwiches as he spoke – the engineer answered equally quietly.

“Put a li'l pepper on 'em, nuthin’ too bad.”

“Ah, bien, so he just added some extra flavor…”, Gabriel said, rolling his eyes and taking a bite.  It wasn’t chili pepper, fortunately, but black pepper which merely added a bit of zing to the cheese and ham. He pretended to choke on the first bite simply to make the scout pale and joined in the laughter of Grant and John, who had understood he was pulling the scout’s leg, feeling fully relaxed again as he finished his lunch with large, hungry bites.

 

“…Mmm, smells delicious, what’re we eating?”, Sam asked as she returned from her shower to find Gabriel stirring in not one, not two, but  _three_ steaming pots on the small kitchen stove: when he turned to her, it was with a mysterious smile.

“J'vais pas te dire jusqu'au moment que j'te servira ton dîner, mon ange, but you’ll  _love_ it. C'est une recette comme toi-même, raffinée et délicate…”, he said, adding under his breath, “…but nowhere near as  _hot_ …”

“That, I heard, love.  I’ll bet you’d be hard-pressed to find a dish to rival the way you taste to me, either, so at least you’re not the only one longing for dessert.”, she said, to which his reaction naturally was to sweep her into his arms for a tight, promising embrace that allowed him to whisper into her ear.

“…Forget dessert, mon délir, ce que tu m'fais sentir est bien plus que d'faim et d'besoin, bien plus que tout ces mots simples et cettes idées sans aucune conséquence…  The heat you make me feel is more than hunger or lust, mon ange de feu, and it needs a  _shitload_ more than just s'baiser – I need you to  _complete_ me, to  _ignite_ me… an’ I need it  _all the time_ , not just quand tu t'balades devant moi en que tes d'sous…”  He let one hand trail down her side to her hip, causing Sam to give a light groan and wish for him to say 'forget dinner too’, but he then grinned and kissed her forehead.  “…but dinner first.  Believe me, this dish is worth it.”

“Oh,  _not fair_ , love…”, Sam said, pouting – she still moved to get fully dressed, though, knowing what Gabriel planned by his little display of before and deciding to give him a taste of his own medicine.  She picked out her clothes carefully – a short skirt and a blouse that showed off as much of her skin as possible without revealing too much.  “But you’re right, it does smell nice…”  Gabriel turned to her with a smile that first turned into a smirk when he saw her choice of clothing and that then seamlessly transitioned to a look of utter disbelief as she dangled her underwear in front of her.  “…I must say I intend to eat two helpings of it if it tastes as delicious as it smells…”

“Oh, now  _that_ is fuckin’  _unfair,_ how am I s'posed to focus on  _food_ and  _eating_ with you wearing  _that_ and… and…”, Gabriel sputtered, causing Sam to grin and shrug theatrically.

“Well, if you need someone to wipe your chin free of drool… or maybe someone to feed you, just in case your hands refuse to cooperate…”

“Non, non, you ain’t coming within three feet of me or I’m forgetting all about the damn food, and it really is a dish worth the, uh,  _frustration_.”, Gabriel said, grinning again and clearly itching to reach out to her and have his hands properly rove over her form.  “Mon dieu, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to… just…  _merde_ , j'peux me finir en juste te regardant, j'suis si affamé de toi… not fuckin’ fair…”

“Should I play nice?”, Sam asked, but he shook his head instantly.

“No, no, you get to play dirty now, and it’s gonna be my turn later.  J'te jure, you are going to pay for teasin’ me like you’re doing now…”, he said, absent-mindedly stirring the pots and then completely focusing on them again as the food was apparently nearing completion. “Okay, donc, we add this here… an’ a little bit of salt in here…  Okayyy…  Dinner is bein’ served!”, he said, ladling out what looked like white, creamy stew onto a deep plate  The scent rising from it was near-divine, Sam found, her mouth watering and her empty stomach rumbling in anticipation.  “C'est blanquette de veau – it’s, uh, a kind of veal stew with cream.”, he explained, causing Sam to nod and take a small bit onto her fork, eating it slowly and relishing how the tender meat practically fell apart on her tongue.

“Mm, this is delicious, Gabriel, you weren’t kidding…  _wow,_ this is amazing…”

“Don’t eat it too quickly.”, her boyfriend admonished her, even though he seemed to want to hoover up the contents of his own plate at lightning speed, probably due to the fact that the more he ate, the more he noticed just how hungry he was for  _her_. His looks her way told her that he meant every word he’d spoken before: he’d find ways to repay her for her teasing and her exciting him.  Each of the ways Sam could think of were making  _her_ blood rush all the quicker as well, and  Sam had to admit that the prospect of Gabriel exacting his revenge for her very effective teasing was more than welcome.  Deciding that she wanted her lover as eager as he could get, Sam decided to lick her lips clean slowly and was promptly rewarded by Gabriel following the minute flicks of her tongue with an intense look that made her own hands itch.  “…You wanted seconds, no?”, he said, and Sam grinned.

“Well, at first I said that to tease, but now I really  _do_ want second helpings.  You outdid yourself yet again, mon amour.  On peut s'enjouir ensemble après, non?”, she said, laughing softly when Gabriel first pouted and then nodded.

“D'accord, bien d'accord, mais dépeche-toi ou j'trouve des choses à faire avec toi pendant que tu finisse à manger…”, he said in a low, sultry tone that had Sam feel just a little warmer in the revealing outfit and that had her eating just a little faster.  However, she couldn’t help but tease him just a little bit as she scooped up the last bits of food off her plate.

“…Okay, so, did you say anything about dessert?”  His answer was an impatient groan and him motioning for her to walk over to him, something she did slowly and that got her boyfriend to pull her impatiently into his lap as soon as she was within reach, gasping breathlessly as soon as her weight settled on his legs.  “…Well, you weren’t kidding when you said you were going to forget all about the food-”  He cut her off with a deep, hungry kiss that had her forget all about teasing him as well, even more so when his hands settled on her bottom, pushing her skirt up just a little to allow him the freedom to move.  When they parted again, she wasn’t surprised to find herself panting just as much as him.  “Mmm, mon amour-”

“J'vais pas me patienter, même pas pour une seule seconde…”, Gabriel muttered, kissing her neck and moving his hand down to his fly as he leaned back in the chair, pulling his pants open and then pulling his underwear down just enough to expose him.  It wasn’t the first time that they’d go fully clothed – before they’d started living together, when they’d still had to make do with lunch breaks and the odd night they could share on either side, there had been a few instances where they were impatient or just strapped for time and where removing clothes had been a luxury they couldn’t afford – but it was the first time they’d do so in their own living quarters, and that made Sam extra eager,settling down onto Gabriel’s erection with a soft moan.

“Oh, yeah..”

“C'mon, mon ange, mon déesse,  _ride me like I’m your chariot_ -” Sam didn’t need that said twice: silencing both her boyfriend and herself with a slightly rough kiss, she lifted herself up and then drove herself down again, moaning against Gabriel’s lips and tongue while he did likewise.  The friction of their bodies together was only compounded by the added touch of cloth on their skin instead of lessened: Gabriel’s jeans felt rough against the bare skin of her thighs and behind, and his sweater felt miraculously soft against her bare upper arms and then her stomach as he ran his hands over her back and her sides to get them under the hem of her blouse.  When he gave her breasts a light squeeze, she finally gave up the kiss to gasp for breath and plead for mercy in the same breath.  All the teasing and anticipation had clearly aroused  _her_ just as much as it had excited him.

“Oh god, Gabriel, mon amour, oh dear heaven-”

“T'es mon ciel aussi… oh  _fuck,_ how can I already be  _this fuckin’ close_ … ahh, que l'Seigneur m'pardonna – S-sam,  _s-shit, Sam, ohh…!_ ” If his release didn’t trigger hers, she’d be far more self-satisfied that they hadn’t even gone for five minutes before he came; now, all she could still consciously manage was to grind down onto him in time with the rolls of his hips as she muttered a mixture of praise and profanities just as he had, only stopping when Gabriel’s hands rested on her hips and held her still while they both caught their breath again.  Then, after a minute’s worth of silence, Gabriel sighed and looked her over.  “Mon dieu, we behaved horribly, fuckin’ around  _right after dinner_  – still, serves ya right for teasing me.”

“…Yes, well, it was your own fault, mon amour,  _you_ teased  _me_ first.”, she said, straightening her skirt and rolling her eyes when Gabriel didn’t move from the chair.  “Did I finally wear you out enough to get you quiet the rest of the evening, love?”, she asked lightly, to which he answered with what looked like the utmost effort.

“Mmmnon, we’d need to go at least four times for that… I was just enjoyin’ the afterglow a little…”  He then bit his lip slightly and sat up a little straighter again.  “…Ah, man,  _merde_ , my back…”

“If you’re going to try and tell me you’re too old for this in any way, mon âme, I’m never going to believe you, you’ve got the body of a man my age-”

“An’ the heart of one, too, mon amour, but j'suis désolé, mon corps n'veut pas s'comporter.”

“Don’t tell me-”, Sam started – right at that same moment, however, her cellphone rang and she sighed dramatically.  “You’re not old, mon amour, you just aren’t used to  _that_ position anymore, and you know what they say about practice making perfect.” She could  _feel_ Gabriel’s eyes trying to burn away the fabric of her skirt and blouse as she picked up her cellphone and answered it within the same motion, noticing it was her home number.  It’d be a little past noon back home, the hour when her father or her mother would usually call – in fact, they were a little late, but she couldn’t fault them about that, as they didn’t like calling her when she’d still be mid-battle, they’d told her.

“Samantha.”

“ _Sammy…”_  Instantly, she sat down on her own chair at the table again, her previous high spirits crashing to the ground and her heart feeling like it’d frozen.  It wasn’t her mother or father on the telephone, but Damien, her elder brother: that couldn’t be a good sign.   _“S-sam, she’s… mum’s…”_

“N-no…”, she whispered feebly, instantly tearing up – Gabriel was by her side in a flash, his clothing still dishevelled but his hands soothing on her bare upper arms once he had his chair pulled right next to hers.

“ _S-she’s… not yet, but… but it’s_ bad _, S-sammy, s-she’s barely… her breathing is… s-she didn’t eat a-and the doctor g-gave her morphine a-and he s-said to call the parish priest a-and the man came and mum’s got the final sacrament a-and everything and he’s with dad now a-and… oh God, Sammy, s-she’s going, she’s going…”_

“I-is she still conscious?”, Sam asked, and Damien sobbed loudly before he answered.

“ _B-barely, she’s g-got her eyes open b-but… but she barely… she barely breathes… h-her eyes, each time her eyes close I t-think… e-each time she exhales i-is deeper, a-and it takes l-lo-longer a-and l-longer… S-sammy, Sammy, w-why ca-can’t you be_ here _s-so I could… I could c-cry with you at least…!”_ , he gasped out, and Sam found herself squeezing her hands to fists, willing herself not to cry just as badly.

“P-put me on speaker… I-I’m not t-there, but I’ll be present… I’ll be there… a-and I’ll talk to mum…”  She barely heard the beeps and then the soft clatter of Damien’s cellphone onto the bedside table of her mother, but they registered nonetheless, as did Gabriel’s soft squeeze of her arms to encourage her to speak.  “M-mum?  Mama, a-are you… c-can you hear me?”  She could only hear her mother’s labored breaths but then, weak but still audible, her voice issued from her own cellphone.

“ _S-samantha, darling… I… think it’s time now…”_ She sounded hoarse, Sam noticed, and frail, and everything her mother wasn’t – everything her mother  _couldn’t_ be. But at the same time she sounded calm, something that the woman voiced herself with her next words:  _“I-I’m ready… ready to s-say goodbye to you, and Damien, a-and your dear sweet father… ready to wake up in the light… t-to see the salvation Michael w-went to…”_ She took a slow, labored breath, Sam could tell, before sighing.   _“I w-wish I could… kiss your cheek once more, Samantha…”_

“I w-wish you could do that t-too, m-mum…”, Sam admitted, tears streaming down her cheeks as they did down Gabriel’s, though much more copiously.  “Oh god, m-mum, I wish… I wish I could squeeze your h-ha-hand…”

“ _The priest w-was here… k-kind man… patient man… he said… he said angels would lift me, a-and purify me-”_

“There’s no disease where your soul is going, mum…”, Sam said, her voice unwavering as she spoke, tears still flowing from her eyes like water from a well, but her words flowed just as much.  “Michael will be there, mum, and he’s waiting for you to welcome you, to hold you… h-he’s gone before you, h-holding open the gates of heaven…”

“ _Heaven would be seeing you one final time… oh, S-samantha, I’ve…”_ The woman coughed feebly and then drew a raspy breath, her voice even more quiet as she finished her sentence:  _“I’ve… treated you… s-so terribly…”_

“T-that’s all… forgiven, i-in the past… gone… n-not important, mum… oh mum…”  The woman on the other end of the line – on the other end of the  _world_ , Sam thought as she sobbed – didn’t speak up anymore, just sighing and then breathing laboriously.  However, after a solid minute of silence, she did whisper loud enough for Sam to hear.

“ _I always loved you, and I always will…”_

“M-me too, mum, always, always… oh…”  For minutes, all Sam could hear was her mother’s labored breaths and Damien and her father sobbing – she could hear the priest praying quietly in the background, suggesting that he was still there – and then…

“ _Mum? M-mum?!  Oh, oh no… s-she..”_

“ _I-it’s… she’s gone…”_ Her father’s voice sounded strong, despite the grief and the sorrow in it, but that was all Sam heard: burying her head against Gabriel’s shoulder, she cried loudly and uncontrollably for the loss of her mother, venting almost a full year of pain and two weeks of bittersweet reconciliation in tears that felt like lava coursing over her face.


End file.
